Lawmakers Spar With BOLI Over Wages on Housing Jobs

Deputy legislative counsel says the labor commissioner has more leeway to reduce costs than she thinks.

HOUSING HOPES: An artist's rendering of the planned Copeland Commons in downtown Astoria. (Morgan Heim)
By Nigel Jaquiss

A spirited dialogue continues between two state lawmakers, Sen. Dick Anderson (R-Lincoln City) and Rep. Vikki Breese Iverson (R-Prineville), and the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries over the agency’s prevailing wage determinations for subsidized affordable housing developments.

After an Oregon Journalism Project report on whether such determinations are unnecessarily adding substantial costs to such projects, the lawmakers wrote to BOLI Commissioner Christina Stephenson asking her to use her statutory discretion to reduce such costs. Stephenson replied that her agency’s determinations correctly followed Oregon law.

The lawmakers then sought an opinion from the Legislative Counsel Office. In an April 15 opinion, deputy legislative counsel Sean Brennan wrote: “[Stephenson] does in fact have the power to consider alternative definitions for residential construction that are not strictly limited to the two categories listed in the statute.”

In other words, Brennan says the labor commissioner has more leeway to reduce costs than she thinks.

BOLI spokeswoman Rachel Mann says the agency has consulted with its own attorney and reviewed the legislative history of the relevant laws and determined it is acting appropriately. Says Mann, “We are confident in our analysis and application of the law.”

This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit investigative newsroom for the state of Oregon.

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