§ 305.22 - Services performed by the recipient's own forces.

The recipient may wish to have a portion or all of the design, construction, inspection, legal services or other work and/or services in connection with the project performed by personnel who are employed by the recipient either full or part time (in-house). Due to the difficulty in monitoring in-house construction and the limited EDA staff available to perform the monitoring, in-house construction is discouraged.

(a) If EDA approves the use of the recipient's in-house forces to construct all or part of the EDA assisted project and the in-house forces are to be augmented by personnel hired specifically for the EDA assisted project, the hourly wages to be paid to such personnel shall be the same as the hourly wages paid to full time personnel of the recipient doing the same or similar work. If the nature of the work is not similar and/or there is not an established wage scale, the prevailing state or county hourly wage for public employees shall be obtained from the appropriate state or county agency and used for the newly established position. However, non-profit recipients must pay all personnel employed for the construction of the EDA assisted project the prevailing hourly wages for the area as established by the U.S. Department of Labor.

(b) The use of in-house forces for construction may be approved by EDA if:

(1) The recipient has a special skill required for the construction of the project, e.g., construction of unique Indian structures, or

(2) The recipient has made all reasonable efforts to obtain a contractor but has failed to do so because of uncontrollable factors such as the remoteness of the project site or an overabundance of construction work in the project area, or

(3) Substantial cost savings can be demonstrated.