This posting, June 10, 2007, on www.billybytes.com/blog/, directs readers to the following references:

1. Blog posting of June 3, 2007, titled “Shad Season 2007

2. The June 2, 2007, blog posting’s link to Northampton County Controller John Schimmel’s Audit Report of August 4, 2006

3. The link of today’s posting to the article published in yesterday’s edition (June 9, 2007) of The Express-Times, titled “Repair price tag goes up”

Northampton County taxpayers have paid contractors again and again and again and over and over and over for repairs to the county courthouse including its cupola, prison, and Gracedale Nursing Home for work that should have been performed satisfactorily the first time the work was performed.

These contractors include notably Alvin H. Butz Inc. (courthouse and Gracedale) and Keating Construction Company (prison).

In addition, as Controller Schimmel’s audit report reveals, the contracts between the contractors and/or “construction managers” should have been for a fixed price to the county, and not cost-plus fee.

These cost-plus contracts have allowed the contractors to fleece the taxpayers.

In addition, Northampton County has allowed - indeed, encouraged - the contractors to use so-called “labor protection agreements,” or LPAs.

LPAs require the county to pay construction workers union scale under the prevailing wage requirements of Davis-Bacon, a federal statute that applies to construction projects involving the use of federal funds.

Davis-Bacon does not apply to the Northampton County construction projects since they are funded by the year 2001 $111 million bond and other non-federal funds, as reported in Controller Schimmel’s audit report.

The LPAs also coerce non-union workers to pay the equivalent of union dues, a requirement that in effect strong-arms them into becoming union members for all practical purposes.

In addition, the LPAs provide for the payment of wages to workers from outside the jurisdiction of the Northampton County bonds - e.g., Lehigh - while denying employment to construction workers within the bonds’ jurisdiction; i.e., Northampton County.