Here They Go Again. Loudoun County Planning Next Government-Mandated PLA Experiment

Loudoun County is Making Plans for a Government-Mandated PLA Again

This time, on projects specifically chosen to avoid state and federal review.

Less than a year after Loudoun County was forced to cancel the procurement of its new government office building in the face of a lawsuit challenging an illegal government-mandated Project Labor Agreement (PLA) mandate, the Board of Supervisors' Finance Committee is back at it. On May 12, the committee recommended applying PLA requirements to two new pilot projects: a $38 million expansion of the Adult Detention Center (ADC) and an $86 million widening of Rt. 15 between Battlefield Parkway and Montresor Road. And this time, they're doing it on projects specifically chosen to avoid state and federal review.

When Loudoun first tried to impose a PLA on the new government office building, the project was met with a lawsuit from Coakley & Williams Construction, Ennis Electric, and the Associated Builders and Contractors Virginia Chapter. The plaintiffs argued the PLA mandate violated Virginia's Right to Work Law, the Virginia Public Procurement Act, and the Virginia Constitution. Rather than defend the mandate in court, the County canceled the procurement two days before a hearing on a preliminary injunction. Assistant Director of Procurement Cheryl Middleton recently told the County’s Board of Supervisors that staff received "numerous bidder questions regarding the PLA requirements" and that the bidding deadline had to be extended twice.

Rather than reconsider whether mandating PLAs is sound public policy, the County is now deliberately steering the requirement onto projects with less outside scrutiny. Middleton told the committee that the Rt. 15 widening was a good fit for the pilot in part because "this project does not include state or federal funding, which allows the county greater flexibility in structuring and implementing the pilot PLA without additional VDOT or federal review requirements." Translation: after the last PLA pilot collapsed under legal challenge, staff is now specifically picking projects designed to dodge the state and federal review that comes with outside funding.

The County also has its own internal survey data showing exactly what happens when PLAs are imposed: over half of contractors who had previously performed work for Loudoun County said they would not bid on a project with a PLA mandate. These weren't outside critics - they were the County's own trusted, long-time bidders. That should have ended the conversation. Instead, the Finance Committee voted to redirect this costly PLA experiment.

To their credit, some supervisors on the Board recognized the obvious problems. Supervisor Matthew Letourneau (R-Dulles) pointed out that the County is essentially choosing to harm itself - that the contractors who most often bid on Loudoun projects have already said they will not bid under a PLA, that the only bidders likely to show up will be out-of-state companies bringing out-of-state workers, and that quality will suffer when the County's most trusted, long-time bidders walk away. Supervisor Caleb Kershner (R-Catoctin) raised similar concerns specifically about the Rt. 15 project in his district.

Yet rather than engage seriously with the evidence - the lawsuit, the canceled procurement, the County's own survey - Committee Chair Juli Briskman (D-Algonkian) and County Chair Phyllis Randall (D-At Large) brushed the concerns aside. "We're not building the Taj Mahal," Randall said. "They are buildings and roads. They're not complicated projects." Tell that to the contractors who actually build them. Tell that to the residents who will pay for them.

Independent research has consistently confirmed what the County's own survey already showed. A RAND Corporation study found that PLAs reduce competition and drive up costs - in Los Angeles, a PLA requirement led to a 21% increase in project expenses. Apply that math to the $124 million combined price tag on the ADC and Rt. 15 projects, and Loudoun taxpayers could be on the hook for an additional $26 million, all so a handful of officials can "lead by example" on a policy their own contractors have already rejected.

Loudoun County already learned this lesson the hard way once. Doubling down on a second and third attempt isn't leadership - it's a costly experiment with taxpayer dollars, and the people of Loudoun County deserve better.