Bill Status
WV Code
Audits/ Reports

Introduced Version House Bill 3149 History

DOWNLOAD  wpd  |  Email

H. B. 3149


         (By Delegates Caputo, Barker, Brown, Manypenny,

Poore, Wells, Moore, Frazier, Longstreth,

                   Hamilton and Ellem)

         [Introduced February 15, 2011; referred to the

         Committee on the Judiciary.]



A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new article, designated §5A-3C-1, §5A-3C-2, §5A-3C-3 and §5A-3C-4, all relating to the Department of Administration; retention of jobs within the State of West Virginia; legislative findings; providing definitions; requiring state contracts and local contracts funded with state dollars to be performed within the United States; and providing civil penalties and enforcement provisions for failure to comply.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:


ARTICLE 3C. Retention of jobs within the State of West Virginia.

§5A-3C-1. Legislative findings.

    The Legislature finds that:

    (1) State agencies and subdivisions procure services in part through contracts with private vendors;

    (2) Increasingly, private vendors carry out these services, or subcontract or otherwise procure these services, from a location outside of the United States;

    (3) This international outsourcing exacerbates unemployment and workforce dislocation and deprives West Virginia residents of job opportunities, including industries and jobs this state has expended development assistance resources to attract;

    (4) International outsourcing erodes state and local revenues by drawing jobs and income away from the state; and

    (5) International outsourcing additionally may provide less privacy protections for state residents whose personal information may, in the course of service delivery, be transmitted to locations outside the United States.

§5A-3C-2. Definitions.

    (a) "Developmental assistance" means any form of public assistance, including tax expenditures, made for the purpose of stimulating economic development of a corporation, industry, geographic jurisdiction or any other sector of the state's economy, including but not limited to, industrial development bonds, training grants, loans, loan guarantees, enterprise zones, empowerment zones, tax increment financing, fee waivers, land price subsidies, infrastructure whose principal beneficiary is a single business or defined group of businesses at the time it is built or improved, matching funds, tax abatements, tax credits and tax discounts of every kind, including corporate franchise, personal income, sales and compensating use, raw materials, real property, job creation, individual investment, excise, utility, inventory, accelerated depreciation and research and development tax credits and discounts.

§5A-3C-3. State and local contracts; state-funded development


    The following provisions apply to all state contracts and local contracts funded with state dollars, except where it would be inconsistent with current state law and state-funded development assistance:

    (1) The state agency may not award a contract or development assistance to a vendor, bidder, contractor, subcontractor or applicant for development assistant that performs the work at a site outside of the United States. Nothing in this bill may be construed to supersede or replace existing requirements in place for development assistance programs;

    (2) Each vendor submitting a bid or contract to provide services and all development assistance applicants shall certify that the services covered by the bid, contract or development assistance will be performed in the United States; and

    (3) If, during the life of the contract, the vendor, contractor, subcontractor or development assistance recipient shifts overseas work that is funded under the contract, the state agency shall terminate the contract for noncompliance. In addition, the vendor, contractor, subcontractor or development assistance recipient shall forfeit penalties to the state agency or local government in an amount equal to the amount paid by the state outside the United States.

§5A-3C-4. Penalties; enforcement.

    (a) Any contractor, vendor, bidder or development assistance recipient that violates the provisions of section three of this article may not receive any state contracts or development assistance for a period of five years from the date of determination thereof.

    (b) The state agency may bring a civil action in state or federal court to compel enforcement under this statute. The court shall award reasonable attorney's fees and costs to the state agency.

    NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to ensure that state tax dollars are used to create state jobs and to stabilize the state tax base by prohibiting the state from contracting with or providing economic development assistance to companies that ship service work outside the United States.


