Marc Gerken, CEO of American Municipal Power, Inc., addressed discrepancies in prevailing wage payment in the Bowling Green solar project at city council on Oct. 17.
Gerken said the workers were not being paid prevailing wage, but now that this discovery was made, employees will be paid such a wage.
AMP contracted NextEra, an energy developer, to handle the project, who in turn hired Blattner Energy, the site contractor.
Gerken accredited the discrepancy to a communication failure among the three companies.
“There’s a little bit of a glitch between the development and the construction,” he said.
AMP and NextEra had agreed to pay prevailing wage; however, Blattner Energy does not pay prevailing wage.
As the project continued, Gerken said “AMP was under the understanding that it was a prevailing wage site.”
Gerken said once this discrepancy was brought to AMP’s attention, AMP immediately engaged in a conversation with NextEra and Blattner.
As a result of this discovery, the businesses are working to address this issue.
“NextEra is reamending their contract with Blattner,” Gerken said. “It’s not quite done yet, but it will be soon, within a week, where they are going to change it to be prevailing wage.”
Additionally, Gerken said the companies are working backward to ensure employees are being paid what was promised. They will compensate the employees for the difference between their previous wage and prevailing wage for their previous work.
The prevailing wage discrepancy was discovered during the city council meeting on Oct. 3 by Councilman Mike Aspacher.
Aspacher presented council with an email from Sept. 2, 2016 from AMP that reported the solar field as a prevailing wage project.
However, Brian O’Connell, city utilities director, told council he received definitive word from AMP that the solar field was not a prevailing wage project, contradicting AMP’s statements to Aspacher.
The solar project is a 20-megawatt solar field, the largest in Ohio, and is to be completed on Dec. 31 this year.
Gerken said the project is still on time and was working smoothly until this prevailing wage contradiction.
He expressed his apologies for the confusion and thanked city council for shedding light on the unfortunate situation.
“They owned up to it, but I will say we should have been more on top of it. So I’m sorry that it caused you guys to be the ones to raise this question. We should have found it.”
