Each month I receive in my inbox the City of Minneapolis’ Compliance Monthly – a newsletter that the Minnesota Department of Civil Rights Contract Compliance Divisions publishes. Often, as it does in the September 2016 edition, it toots its own horn about how many contractors they have “held accountable”, and how much they have collected and disbursed in restitution (17 and $53,995 for 2016 Q2 if you are curious). But this month they also provided in their compliance tips something I thought may actually be of interest – a simple “how to” obtain the most current prevailing wage decision under the Davis-Bacon Act (DBA). So, here it is, with a few of my thoughts.
Step 1 – go to http://www.wdol.gov (this is the federal Wage Determinations OnLine)
Step 2 – Choose “Selecting DBA WDs” (if you want to search old ones, click on “Archived WDs”; if you know the number you can put that in there instead)
Step 3 – Choose the State, County, and Construction Type – then click “search”
Step 4 – The wage decision will populate – click “printer friendly version” to print
Step 5 – (Optional) – Select “Sign Up for Alert Service”
Assuming you checked the right boxes/selections, this will provide the most current wage decision. Note, you can sign up for the Alert Service which will alert you when that determination has changed. While a DBA project will use the same rates throughout the project, keep in mind that some cities or other municipalities may adopt the published DBA rates, but also require that the pay be updated during the course of a project. This means the contractor is responsible for updating prevailing wages during the course of a contract. Also, if more than 90 days lag between the bid and the contract, the new rates may apply. Accordingly, I would suggest selecting signing up for the alert if this is the case with your project. Of course, we all know finding the list of rates isn’t the hard part, but selecting the one that you think is right based on the job duties performed that the government will actually agree on, when the job title doesn’t line up with those offered. But that is a whole other topic…