Prevailing Wage Act Amended Regarding Timing for DOL Publication of Prevailing Wages
There has been very little legislation being enacted in this term of the Illinois General Assembly, at least to-date - exactly 2 new Public Acts have become effective. One of these deals with the the Prevailing Wage Act.
Local governments know they are obligated to approve a prevailing wage ordinance each June to adopt the prevailing wages that apply to public works projects. The Act also requires the Department of Labor to investigate and ascertain the prevailing wages in the month of June. So, public bodies rely on the DOL to release and publish the prevailing wage rates prior to the public body's enactment of the prevailing wage ordinance. Over the past few years, that's been hit or miss (the DOL didn't even adopt new wage rates in 2016).
Recently enacted legislation (P.A. 100-002) would make it even more difficult for public bodies to comply with the statutory requirements. Although no change has been made to the mandatory June deadline for a local government adopting the prevailing wage ordinance, the Act was modified to give the DOL until August 15th to publish the applicable prevailing wage rates. So, presumably, a public body has to adopt the ordinance in June, but the DOL doesn't have to publish the new rates until August - 2 months after the deadline for local government compliance. There certainly seems to be a disconnect on this one.
You can read the P.A.100-002 here.
Post Authored by Julie Tappendorf
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