SPARKS –– The Building and Construction Trades Council of Northern Nevada has filed a complaint with the state labor commission, alleging that workers on the Legends at Sparks Marina project were not paid the prevailing wage.

The complaint is leveled against the city of Sparks, Legends developer RED Development, Scheels All-Sports and a slew of subcontractors, claiming that about 50 workers were undercut in their pay.

According to Paul McKenzie, the council’s executive secretary treasurer, some workers were given up to $12 per hour less than they should have received. Others were shorted $30 per hour in overtime pay, he claims. The complaint also alleges that subcontractors extracted money from workers’ paychecks for fringe benefits that may not have existed. McKenzie did not put a total dollar amount on how much may be owed to those workers.

“The first thing (that we want) is that they locate all the workers who were on the project and correct their pay,” McKenzie said. “The other thing is … this project is going to continue on and we would hope that the city would take into consideration the complaints and property enforce prevailing wage on all future projects.”

The city of Sparks now has about 30 days to give a report to the state labor commissioner, detailing the payment of prevailing wages, according to the terms of the complaint.

However, if the labor commissioner finds that the contractors were cheated, no taxpayer money will be spent to correct the damage, according to Sparks City Attorney Chet Adams.

“RED (Development) would assume all the liability,” Adams said. “We are not looking at risking taxpayer funds on any adverse ruling.”

Officials from RED Development did not return calls for comment Monday.

In April 2008, the city of Sparks signed a contract, promising that workers on the Legends project, funded in part by city bonds, would be paid “fair and livable wages.”

State law requires that all projects using public financing ensure workers are paid the “prevailing wage,” or the wage determined to be fair for skilled tradesmen, taking into account the area’s cost of living. 

“The city has gone the extra five miles on this so that the people working on the RED project were paid prevailing wages whether this was a public works project or not,” Adams said.

Another complaint about prevailing wage problems on the Legends project in April 2008 prompted Sparks to hire Poggemeyer Design Group, Inc. to investigate contractors working on the Scheels All-Sports project. That contract is no longer active.

The complaint comes on the heels of another local prevailing wage legal struggle, this time involving the Cabela’s store near Verdi. Litigation from the trades council alleged that contractors for Cabela’s also violated prevailing wage laws.

A June ruling from the labor commissioner upset trades council hopes when it stated that prevailing wage was not enforceable on construction projects funded through Sales Tax Anticipated Revenue (STAR) bonds. Both the Cabela’s and Legends projects were built with STAR bond financing.

However, the laborers’ hopes were rekindled in August when the district court agreed to reconsider the June ruling.

“With the district court ruling, … we figured it was a good time,” McKenzie said.

The general contractor on the more than $1 billion Legends at Sparks Marina project is Q&D Construction. They are not named in the complaint.