So……we had a prevailing wage compliance question submitted to our website that we wanted to share. The visitor asked about completing certified payroll reports; and, more specifically, how to break out the deductions by project. Here is the simple answer.
The ONLY thing that has to be broken out BY PROJECT is the base hourly rate that you pay to the employee and the hours associated with the hours worked for that prevailing wage project. There IS a space for you to provide the gross earnings for ALL PROJECTS the employee worked that week, right next to the earnings for that project (box 7). So, for example, if the employee worked a gross amount of $745 for the Davis-Bacon work and $1500 for ALL PROJECTS (which includes the $745 worked on the Davis-Bacon project) then you would enter something that looks like this: $745/$1500. You ARE NOT required to break employee deductions out BY PROJECT, so the box which reflects the deductions (box 8) from an employee’s paycheck can be representative of ALL PROJECTS.
Please not that the above answer is ONLY applicable to federal Davis-Bacon work. Why? Because any state with a prevailing wage law of its own may have different requirements for their Certified Payroll Reports. When in doubt, pick up the phone or drop us an email. Helping prevailing wage contractors stay in compliance with state and federal regulations is what we do!