Updating earlier blog postings on this topic, the Eighth District Court of Appeals followed earlier court rulings and prohibited the State from enforcing its statute eliminating residency requirements for construction projects, which was signed by Governor Kasich in August 2016 (City of Cleveland v. State of Ohio, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 105500, 2017-Ohio-8882).
By doing so, the Court ruled in favor of the City of Cleveland’s right to institute the Fannie Lewis Law, which poses local hiring requirements on public construction contracts over $100,000 by requiring that a minimum of 20 percent of the total construction work hours be performed by Cleveland residents, and that no fewer than 4 percent of those resident work hours be performed by low-income persons.
For the time being, public entities can still include these types of residency requirements in their construction contracts without running afoul of the State’s HB 180 that was intended to prohibit them. Whether that remains the case depends on what happens in the State’s likely appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court.
