State College council approves suspending ordinance causing project bid shortages
Aug. 7 update: The State College borough council unanimously approved temporarily suspending the Responsible Contractor Ordinance during its meeting on Aug. 4. The suspension is effective immediately and runs through the end of the year. Borough staff will continue to work with outside partners to identify contractors that meet the requirements of the RCO, and to consider possible amendments without compromising the overall goal of it, Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said.
The State College borough council will consider suspending its Responsible Contractor Ordinance next month due to a lack of qualified bids on projects with upcoming deadlines.
The Responsible Contractor Ordinance, or RCO, was adopted by the council in 2024 and is similar to an ordinance passed by the county government in 2023. State law, and the borough’s previous purchasing code, requires contracts to be awarded to the lowest, responsible bidder. By adding the RCO amendment, it provided additional guidance on what “responsible” means in terms of borough contracts that require competitive bidding.
The RCO allows the borough to take other factors beyond the cost into account, such as whether potential contractors — who are performing work valued at $250,000 or more on any public facility or public works project — have the necessary experience, equipment, technical skills, qualifications, and organizational, financial and personnel resources. It also requires 70% of the craft labor workers on the project be either journeyperson workers who have completed an apprenticeship program, or be registered apprentices enrolled in a program.
But some of those requirements are making it difficult for the borough to find qualified bidders for construction contracts that need to move forward now — or the borough risks losing several millions of dollars in grant funding. Borough Manager Tom Fountaine during Monday’s council meeting said a temporary suspension of the RCO would allow them to move forward.
“We’re expecting potentially two bids yet this year, one is for the Calder Way Phase 2 project, which is the one where the grants are at risk, and the other is the annual repaving contract,” Fountaine said. “So those would be the two that we know would be impacted by this suspension immediately. It’s possible that other things will come up between now and the end of the year, but those are the two that we have on the calendar right now.”
The council previously discussed the lack of qualified bidders during a meeting earlier this month when the borough had to waive the requirements for a road reconstruction project, the second time a waiver was approved.
Fountaine said the borough staff is working on creating an amendment to the ordinance that would allow waivers to be approved in a more timely manner so projects aren’t as delayed through a re-bidding process.
The main reason bidders aren’t qualified under the RCO is the workforce requirement, Fountaine said. Borough solicitor Terry Williams said there is a lot of “agony” among staff trying to find a way to solve the issue so they don’t have to constantly re-bid projects.
Council president Evan Myers said the RCO was not only good intentioned, but the right thing to do. He suggested the staff could look into a provision that says if there is a responsible contractor, they qualify for the job, but if there aren’t any, then the borough can move forward without delaying the process.
“... Which would accomplish both things,” Myers said of a potential provision. “One, standing by our principles that we believe in this, but two, understanding that we need to get things done for everyone. So I think there’s probably a way around it that puts in a process that doesn’t delay but also, as I said, stands by the things we believe in.”
Williams said he thinks they’ll always run up against the law’s requirement to select the lowest, responsible bidder.
“When you talk about, ‘we’re going to have a selection process based on something other than that,’ we’d have to look at that very, very closely because I think that will probably run afoul of the bidding requirements,” he said.
Fountaine anticipates a temporary suspension of the RCO will be on the Aug. 4 council meeting agenda.
This story was originally published July 22, 2025 at 3:45 PM.
