The former president of Wheeling Jesuit University is pushing for changes in the state's prevailing wage law, which he says unnecessarily drives up the cost of school and road construction in West Virginia.

Father Tom Acker, who now lives in Beckley and directs a non-profit organization called Forward Southern West Virginia, filed an objection to the prevailing wage rates.

Acker outlined his complaints Tuesday at a Division of Labor hearing.

The law requires that contractors building projects that are financed with state money pay workers the prevailing wage. Relying primarily on the union scale, the Division of Labor determines the prevailing wage for numerous job classifications in each of the 55 counties.

Contractors have long complained about the law's effects on costs. For example, data from the state Bureau of Employment Programs shows carpenters in Raleigh County were paid an average of $16 an hour in 2002. But the prevailing wage set by the state was $31.73 an hour.

Acker specifically challenged the rates for Raleigh, Mingo, Ohio and Fayette counties, though he says it's a statewide problem, causing projects to cost taxpayers more than they should.

"That prevailing wage rate is a union organized rate and it doesn't represent the majority of the people," Acker said. "It simply doesn't."

Rebecca Prokity, director of the state chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors, agreed.

"What we would like to see is to take a good, hard look at the state and see if it is truly reflective so that we as taxpayers are getting the most that we can from our tax dollars on public projects," she said.

Officials with the state Division of Labor and a lawyer for the West Virginia State Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents organized labor, defended the process during the hearing.

"The union, the council, doesn't intend to be contentious, but it is difficult and people do tend to get contentious when their wages are taken away from them," said Vincent Trivelli, the council's lawyer.

His remarks were a response to Acker, who had earlier said that he did not hire a lawyer to represent him at the hearing because he wanted to avoid confrontation.

State labor officials contend they are following the letter of the law in determining the rates. The process the division uses now has been in place since at least the early 1990s and withstood a state Supreme Court challenge in 1994.

Larry Walker, who heads up the division's wage and hour section, said the process begins each year around August. Thousands of surveys are sent out to private contractors and organized labor groups asking for wage information on employees and members. Whichever group's data represents the majority of workers in the state is used to determine the prevailing wage.

Last year, the division sent out surveys to 4,332 licensed contractors in the state. Acker examined the documentation and determined the division was able to use responses from 26 of those contractors out of the 840 received. State officials at the hearing did not dispute Acker's findings.

Walker said a lot of the responses came from contractors that were out of business or didn't report doing any work during the year. Others reported doing residential, federal or out-of-state work, none of which can be used in the wage calculations. Many of the surveys couldn't be used because the forms were incomplete, Walker said.

Meanwhile, the 100 or so collective bargaining units all submitted usable data, officials said.

"It is what it is," Walker said when Acker criticized the outcome of process.

Acker argued that non-union workers usually don't get paid as much as union members. He said only about 20 percent of the work force is being represented in the state's prevailing wage rates, which Acker claims are higher than neighboring states with healthier economies.

"You've got to get a blend of what actually is in the marketplace, as well as organized labor, and what would happen is there wouldn't be such a differential," Acker said during a break in the hearing. "And in some of the data, you see the differential is very great."

Trivelli contends that hundreds of the state's private contractors have signed off on collective bargaining agreements with the unions.

"It's not just a solely union-developed number," Trivelli said. "That's a number that's negotiated between employees and employers."

But Acker believes the state is doing only the minimum in trying to solicit data from private contractors. He said the state isn't capturing the spirit of the law.

"It's quite clear that this should be a blend," Acker said of the process. "They have done a pro forma attempt to get the non-union thing."

Acker said he's not against the prevailing wage system. He said he just wants a more realistic outcome.

Part of the problem may be the complex worker classification system the state uses for the rates. Acker said the federal government uses about half the classifications that the state does.

Another problem may be the forms the contractors have to fill out for the survey.

"They've got to change the classification and make it simpler," Acker said. "They've got to make the form simpler so it doesn't require 90 pages for a little company. They've got to collect this data."

The hearing will continue Feb. 22 with more evidence and possible witnesses. State hearing examiner James McNeely has 15 days to rule on Acker's objection following the conclusion of the proceedings.

Contact writer Justin D. Anderson at jus...@dailymail.com or 348-4843.