SHEA JOHNSON – STAFF WRITER
Posted Nov. 13, 2014 @ 6:42 pm
VICTORVILLE – The staffing agency co-owned by San Bernardino County 1st District Supervisor Robert Lovingood sought $3.62 million in damages from Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority this year, according to a claim obtained Thursday by the Daily Press.
In the claim dated Aug. 22, ICR Staffing Services alleged that VVWRA failed to pay prevailing wage to ICR’s contract workers between 2011 and 2013 and solicited ICR’s temporary employees to jump ship to a competing staffing agency. The claim was served Sept. 11.
“We obviously had a discussion with the claimants prior to the filing of the claim and responded,” VVWRA General Manager Logan Olds said Thursday. “The board took a look at it and the direction was to deny the claim.”
In a numbered format, the claim lists a series of alleged wrong-doings by VVWRA, which had utilized ICR workers between 2011 and 2013 for the Upper Narrows Pipeline project, but in May chose lower-bidding Hesperia-based iLink Business Management for future contract services.
In 2011, a two-year contract services agreement provided ICR employees a gross figure of roughly $260,000 per year. But since the project was subject to reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the contract should have been let as prevailing wage and “generated a gross annual billing in excess of $1.5 million,” the claim states.