Recently, I was asked if the threshold for the Pa. Prevailing Wage Act had been increased to $100,000. The answer is no. The threshold is still $25,000, except for a narrow exception which is explained in this earlier blog post.

In general, the Prevailing Wage Act mandates that workers on Pennsylvania public construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration, or repair projects costing more than $25,000, other than those involving “maintenance work,” must be paid the general prevailing minimum wage rates. “Maintenance work” is defined in the Act as “the repair of existing facilities when the size, type or extent of such facilities is not thereby changed or increased.” By definition, “maintenance work” is a subset for “repair” and therefore must be narrowly construed.

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The Pa. Prevailing Wage Act mandates that workers on Pennsylvania public construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration, or repair projects costing more than $25,000, other than those involving “maintenance work,” must be paid the general prevailing minimum wage rates. “Maintenance work” is defined in the Act as “the repair of existing facilities when the size, type or extent of such facilities is not thereby changed or increased.”

According to the Pa. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Borough of Youngwood v. Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage Appeals Board, the definition of maintenance work must be narrowly construed:

[B]ecause the Act provides that “public work” includes “repair” and that the exception to “public work” (i.e., “maintenance work”) includes “repair” of a specific type, it logically follows that the General Assembly intended that “maintenance work” be considered a lesser or minor form of “repair.” Therefore, we hold that in construing the Act, the focus must fall principally on the Act’s clear mandate that prevailing wages are to be paid to workers on public works projects that meet the criteria of 43 P.S. § 165-2(5), taking into consideration that “maintenance work” is an exception to this mandate and must be narrowly construed. The linguistic construction of “maintenance work,” in turn, must recognize that the Act defines “maintenance work” as a subset of “repair,” and must be accordingly viewed in this narrow manner.

The Commonwealth Court has further held that “maintenance work” is “the repair of existing facilities, that is, facilities that at some point were operating properly but have now failed to do so.” Read more

Thinking of avoiding the Pa. Prevailing Wage Act?  Think again! An intentional violation of the Wage Act can and will result in a debarment for three years.

Section 11(e) of the Wage Act provides:

(e) In the event that the secretary shall determine, after notice and hearing as required by this section, that any person or firm has failed to pay the prevailing wages and that such failure was intentional, he shall thereupon notify all public bodies of the name or names of such persons or firms and no contract shall be awarded to such persons or firms or to any firm, corporation or partnership in which such persons or firms have an interest until three years have elapsed from the date of the notice to the public bodies aforesaid. The secretary may in addition thereto request the Attorney General to proceed to recover the penalties for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which are payable under subsection (f) of this section.

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On November 21, 2013, the House and Senate of the Pennsylvania General Assembly finally passed a $2.3 billion transportation bill.  Governor Corbett is expected to sign the transportation bill on Monday, November 25, in State College, Pa.

The transportation bill includes a provision that increases the threshold for prevailing wages to $100,000, but only for “locally funded” highway and bridge projects. The increase is effective with contracts entered on or after January 1, 2014.

A “locally funded” highway or bridge project is defined as one that is “funded entirely by funds”:

1) paid to counties from the Liquid Fuels Tax Fund;

2) allocated to municipalities under Liquid Fuels Tax Municipal Allocation Law;

3) made available to municipalities from the Highway Bridge Improvement Restricted Account within the Motor License Fund for expenditure on bridge rehabilitation, replacement and removal projects;

4) awarded to municipalities as transportation enhancement grants (under red light enforcement systems);

5) allocated from municipal budgetary sources using revenues derived through municipal taxes or fees; and

6) allocated to municipalities under 58 Pa.C.S.(relating to oil and gas).

For all other public projects, the prevailing wages threshold remains at $25,000.

The full transportation bill can be found here.

It’s that time of year again, when Republican legislators in the Pennsylvania General Assembly seek to amend the Pa. Prevailing Wage Act.  There are now several proposals to do just that, and two bills are farther along in the process than the many others that have been proposed. In April, the House Labor and Industry Committee voted along straight party lines to report out of committee two bills proposing changes to the Prevailing Wage Act.

The first bill, HB796, will raise the threshold amount from $25,000 to $100,000.

The second bill, HB665, will exempt routine road maintenance contracts.

In addition to these two bills, still more bills have been proposed. Here is a small sampling of some of the other bills pending in the General Assembly:

HB1095 would impose a 3-year moratorium on the Prevailing Wage Act.

HB999 would exempt KOZs from requirements of the Prevailing Wage Act.

HB1257 would require at least 51% of a project to be paid with public monies before the Prevailing Wage Act would apply.

It seems likely that this year will see some changes to the Prevailing Wage Act. What those exact changes will be still remains to be seen.  Of course, these newest proposed amendments may lead nowhere, as the amendments proposed last year never came to pass.

The U.S. Department of Labor will offer a free training session in Philadelphia on prevailing wage requirements for federal contracts. The training will be conducted on July 10-12.

This training is not just for federal government contractors. For example, federal agencies must ensure that recipients of assistance funded by federal stimulus funds require contractors and subcontractors to pay laborers and mechanics at least the Davis-Bacon prevailing wages.  Thus, this training will also be useful for contractors performing work on federally-funded public contracts.

The press release with details on the training and how to sign up can be found here.

The Pa. Prevailing Wage Act mandates the payment of specified wages for publicly-funded public works contracts of $25,000 or more.  The wages are typically tied to the wages established by area collective bargaining agreements.

Currently, there are a number of proposed amendments to the Act which would alter application of the Act to different public contracts.

House Bill 709, or the “School Construction Cost Reduction Act,” would exempt school districts as a public entity required to pay prevailing wages, unless the school board votes to be subject to prevailing wage.

House Bill 1329 would raise the contract monetary limit from $25,000 to $185,000.  The $25,000 limit was set in 1961.

There are opposing viewpoints on the various proposed amendments to the Act as well as to the general concept of payment of prevailing wages on public contracts.  Viewpoints in favor of the amendments and against the Act can be found here and here.  Viewpoints in favor of the Act and opposing the proposed amendments can be found here and here.

For a non-partisan viewpoint from an economist with the nonpartisan Keystone Research Center, click here.

Needless to say, the proposed amendments would radically alter the landscape of public contracting in Pennsylvania.  Whether such an altered landscape would actually result in lower construction costs for public entities and taxpayers, without a reduction in decent, middle class wages for workers on public works projects, is an open question.  In all likelihood, the possibility of significantly lower costs on public contracts is probably just an illusion, and something touted by politicians looking for votes.