Good Morning.

My name is Keith Rose. I am the President and CEO of Rieth-Riley

Construction. Our company works throughout the state of Indiana
and employees nearly 1,500 employees. We perform dirt work,
pipe work, bridge construction and both asphalt and concrete
paving. This is our 100th year of business in Indiana which ranges
from the early years of building roads with horses and plows, to
constructing the very first section of the Indiana Toll Road, to
rebuilding portions of the Toll Road as part of the Toll Road Lease
and more recently to rebuilding sections of US-31 here on the
north side of Indianapolis. Personally, I am a Civil Engineer by
education and a Contractor by vocation. Ive been in the business
for over 30 years and have worked in multiple states in various
capacities including field operations, engineering, design and
management and have even worked as a DOT inspector. The
bottom line is I dont need to rely on an academic study, a paid
for survey or some think tank to tell me about the construction
industry and how it functions in the real world. Our company has
been actively engaged in it for nearly a century and Ive lived it for
decades.

Make no mistake about it, public contracts are low bid and low bid
only. There is no negotiation after the bid. No consideration for
prior performance. No consideration for quality of work. No
consideration for safety. No consideration for timeliness. There is
only the low bidder. When it comes to labor, CCW ensures that
there is a level playing field for all contractors.

As an engineer, I look at CCW as a specification for labor. Public

contracts include specifications in order to make sure that the
taxpayer receives a minimum standard of performance. There are
specifications for materials and equipment to make sure that the
material and equipment supplied by the contractor meet or exceed
the minimum design standards. This is to ensure that the finished
product meets or exceeds the contract requirements. CCW is part
and parcel to being a specification for labor in order to ensure that
the low bidder utilizes a sufficiently trained and skilled workforce in
order to deliver a finished project that is built to the design
standards in a safe, timely and efficient manner for the benefit of
all taxpayers.

Those who have pushed for this repeal say that repeal is necessary
to give local companies more opportunities to compete repealing
CCW will actually give them less opportunity to compete by taking
the level playing field away.

Those who have pushed for this repeal have also said that it would
reduce the average cost of a project by 20%. That math isnt just
fuzzy, it is down right wrong and purposefully misleading. In my
world, the average labor cost on a typical project ranges from 17%
to 23% - so roughly 20% on average. In order for their claims that
repealing CCW would reduce project costs by 20% to be true, we
would have to donate the entire labor cost. No company can
afford to do that. The bottom line - anyone who claims that repeal
of CCW will reduce project costs by 10 to 20% simply hasnt done
their homework.

Repeal of CCW would however, lower quality of the work, lower

safety, lower wages, hurt Hoosier employers, hurt Hoosier
employees and therefore hurt the State of Indiana.

HB1019 is based on flawed arguments and simply put, is bad public

policy.

No one who has really taken the time to thoroughly and objectively
do their homework would in clear conscious support this bill.