RESPONSIBLE CONTRACTORS ORDINANCE
When I talk to folks across our district, the conversation always comes back to the same thing: trust. Trust that when we spend taxpayer dollars, we spend them well. Trust that a school renovation, an HVAC installation, or a simple plumbing repair will be done right, on time, and by people who know what they're doing. That's the thinking behind one of the priorities my staff and I have been building toward over the last year: bringing a Responsible Contractor Ordinance (RCO) to our community.
So what actually is an RCO? In plain terms, it's a set of objective, verifiable standards that a contractor has to meet before they're even allowed to bid on a publicly funded construction project. Currently, in a lot of places, including the entirety of the 154th District, Pennsylvania law requires municipalities to award a contract to the lowest bidder. An RCO doesn't get rid of competitive bidding, but it ensures that each bidder is effectively qualified to do the job. That means a contractor has to show:
- A proven track record on similar projects, with no defaults in the past three years
- Proper bonding and insurance — general liability, workers' comp, unemployment
- No debarment by any federal, state, or local agency in the past three years
- A clean safety record, including no cited safety violations in the past three years
- Compliance with wage, tax, and labor law — no violations resulting in fines or back pay of $1,000 or more in the past three years
- Participation in a registered apprenticeship program for every trade they employ on the project, with a track record of actually graduating apprentices
- OSHA 10-hour safety training for every craft worker, and OSHA 30-hour training for at least one person on-site if they're the prime contractor
Without an RCO, however, municipalities can get stuck awarding contracts based on price alone, even to firms with a history of blown deadlines, safety violations, or unpaid wage claims. We've even seen it play out close to home — Haverford Township's new municipal building went three months over schedule and racked up tens of thousands in extra costs after the low-bid contractor ran into problems that a qualification standard might have caught early. That's real money directly from taxpayers, and even more real frustration that our residents end up absorbing.
The good news is this isn't a new or untested idea in Pennsylvania. Districts across Montgomery County, Bucks County, Delaware County, Lehigh County, and Philadelphia have all adopted RCOs in recent years, and studies out of Illinois and Indiana have found that these ordinances actually increase bid competition without driving up overall construction costs. In other words, you get more qualified contractors competing for the work, not fewer, and taxpayers still get a fair price.
That's the goal we’re working towards — not just writing a policy paper, but building something with real input from the people who'd actually be affected by it. We've sat down with electricians, HVAC contractors, plumbers, and building trades unions from across the region to make sure this ordinance reflects what responsible contracting actually looks like on the ground, not just on paper.
Right now, we're gathering input and support from constituents like you to show that this matters here, in our community, and to help move this from a local conversation to real legislation. If you believe in protecting taxpayer dollars, supporting skilled local workers, and holding contractors accountable, click here to sign our petition and let us know you're with us in this effort.
Have any questions, comments, or concerns about what an RCO would mean for our district? Feel free to reach out anytime to info@napoleonfor154.com if you have any queries.
