Herald-Leader should look at prevailing-wage policies

A recent letter to the editor sent to the Lexington Herald-Leader:

The March 25 editorial “University’s presidential pay erodes trust” has the right fire with regards to taking on wasteful spending. Unfortunately, it is sorely misplaced.

Rather than taking on the increase (granted, significant) in the university president’s salary, the Lexington Herald-Leader should focus on more costly and damaging wasteful spending at the university.

For instance, a great step was taken recently toward investing $500 million in privatizing the dorms on UK’s campus. However, this project will be subject to wasteful prevailing-wage practices thus needlessly driving up the cost of construction by nearly $60 million.

That is a lot more than a $300,000 increase in presidential salary. The Lexington Herald-Leader and the University of Kentucky should both turn their eyes toward that wasteful spending practice.