The Pennsylvania Supreme Court didn't do the state's municipalities a favor when it issued its ruling Wednesday on a 2005 milling and repaving project involving five streets in Youngwood, Westmoreland County. For some communities, the lack of detailed guidance from the high court could mean they'll pay more for some street projects than they otherwise would have to pay.

Obviously, if that occurs, the best interests of the communities' taxpayers will not be served.

The issue at the heart of the Youngwood case was whether the contract in question ran afoul of the commonwealth's Prevailing Wage Act. The ruling states that the commonwealth's Bureau of Labor Law Compliance correctly classified the project as reconstruction, and so required the town to pay higher labor costs than actually were paid.

When the project was carried out, Youngwood classified the street work as "maintenance," rather than reconstruction or repair.

The court opinion says the General Assembly's prevailing wage mandate, which applies to public works projects costing at least $25,000, is unambiguous. But the court's lack of guidance to communities about what it perceives as maintenance and what it perceives as reconstruction could cause some towns — fearful of possible legal hassles — to unnecessarily pay prevailing wage.

Gerald Yanity, Youngwood's solicitor, said the court "basically said it's a matter of degree, but they don't really provide any understanding. They left open the question now: When is it maintenance, and when does it cross over into repair?"

The court's failure to provide specific guidance to communities as part of the ruling could not only be the basis for some communities' future prevailing-wage legal problems if, like Youngwood, they choose to gamble regarding a project's classification. But that failure by the court sets the stage for some communities with tight road work budgets to accomplish less. They'll be buying fewer materials and trimming the scope of work because of having to direct more money for wages.

In the high court ruling, Justice Seamus McCaffery wrote, "What is abundantly clear is that the primary purpose of the act is to protect workers employed on public work projects from receiving substandard pay by ensuring that they receive prevailing minimum wages."

There's nothing wrong with the goal of adequate pay; the problem lies with the ambiguity that the court has allowed to remain unaddressed.

According to an Associated Press article, municipal governments across the state had been awaiting the Supreme Court ruling. So had Gov. Ed Rendell, who in April 2006 ordered that resurfacing and other highway work that recently had been reclassified as construction work should be returned to the maintenance category, exempting it from the prevailing wage requirement.

For Youngwood, the decision means the community apparently will have to pay the additional wages, even though the project has been completed. The script apparently has yet to be written on the ruling's possible implications for other communities — now or in the future.

The court should have stipulated exactly what it expects, rather than put communities in the position of having to guess.