If any public work shall be contracted for by a private party acting under an express agreement or understanding for subsequent lease by a board of education, and if it shall be found prior to execution of a lease pursuant to such understanding or agreement that any workman or workmen employed by the contractor or any subcontractor covered by said contract has been paid a rate of wages less than the prevailing wage required to be paid by such contract, then the board of education involved in any such agreement or understanding shall not execute a lease pursuant thereto, nor make any payment in connection therewith, until all wages due and owing to any such workman or workmen in compliance with the stipulated prevailing wage rate have been paid; and such private party is hereby authorized to withhold from any contractor or subcontractor who shall have failed to pay the prevailing wage any sums due to such contractor or subcontractor to an amount sufficient to pay to any workman or workmen the balance of wages due him or them as a result of the contractor’s failure to pay the prevailing wage, and to make such payments directly to such workman or workmen out of the sums thus withheld. For the purposes of this section, the fact and extent of a contractor’s or subcontractor’s failure to pay the prevailing wage shall be determined in accordance with the applicable provisions of the “New Jersey Prevailing Wage Act” (P.L. 1963, c. 150).

L.1968, c. 175, s. 4, eff. July 19, 1968.