Forsyth County's airport authority is denying that it did anything wrong in a dispute that has subcontractors claiming that they didn't get fully paid for their work on a $5.8 million runway-safety project at Smith Reynolds Airport.
In its response to state investigators, the Airport Commission of Forsyth County is saying that it complied with all state and federal regulations on the project.
The commission said that the pay dispute is a matter between the prime contractor, Mainline Contracting Inc. of Durham, the subcontractors and the insurance company that bonded the project.
"We are sympathetic to the situation in which these subcontractors find themselves, but the opportunity for relief is governed by their contracts with Mainline," McKim said.
In a report issued Oct. 27, investigators with the N.C. Department of Transportation faulted the airport commission for not doing enough to make sure that Mainline was paying its subcontractors. Many of the subcontracting businesses are owned by minorities or women. Many of the companies are small, and the owners have been complaining for months that the lack of full payment has threatened their existence.
Mainline was the prime contractor on a project to extend the safety area at the end of one of the runways at Smith Reynolds. That required the hauling of a lot of dirt.
Just short being completed this fall, the project ground to a stop when Mainline went into bankruptcy. Some subcontractors are now saying that the insurance company that bonded the project is only offering them partial payment of what they are owed.
There were three main subcontractors who successively worked on the project, but many other small trucking companies worked under some of the subcontractors.
RAL Grading and Demolition of Raleigh, the subcontractor claiming the largest amount of unpaid work, had a clause in its contract that prohibited it from having subcontractors without permission from Mainline. Mainline told the airport commission that RAL failed to bring enough trucks to the job.
Mainline officials also told the airport that some of the truckers RAL brought onto the job were not minority-owned companies, and that lowered the percentage of minority work on the job. Under federal regulations, recipients of federal grants have to try to involve minority- or female-owned companies in a portion of the work.
The county airport commission, in its response to the state, said that it appeared that Mainline was justified in removing RAL from the job last April.
Nathaniel Davis, the owner of RAL, said that despite the wording of the contract, Mainline officials knew that he was using other trucking companies on the project.
"My termination from Mainline did not mention that at all," Davis said. "It took them two months and four lawyers to come up with that. My subs were approved, each and every one of them."
Davis said that when he didn't get paid he couldn't bring his subcontractors to the site, and that resulted in fewer trucks working.
State officials could not be reached yesterday for comment on the airport's response.
When issuing their report, transportation officials were waiting for more information from the airport authority. State officials have told the airport commission that they would consider legal action and a return of the grant in the event of a major violation of the grant agreement.
McKim said the comments made by Davis show that "it is really a dispute between him and Mainline." When the airport commission learned that companies were claiming nonpayment, McKim said, it put in a two-party check system to make sure that subcontractors were getting paid.
"In the final analysis, they had a dispute over contract volumes," McKim said of Mainline and its subcontractors. "We don't have the facts. Mainline and some of the subs have gotten into disputes that we really can't speak to."
wyoung@wsjournal.com
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