The cost threshold for applicability of the prevailing wage law to a highway, road, street, bridge, sanitary sewer, or water main project contracted by a town

What it would have done

Summary by the Legislative Reference Bureau, the Legislature's nonpartisan drafting office. It's their wording, not ours.

Under the current prevailing wage law, certain laborers, workers, mechanics, and truck drivers employed on a project of public works contracted by a local governmental unit for which the project cost of completion is $25,000 or more (statutory threshold) must be paid at the rate paid for a majority of the hours worked in the person's trade or occupation in the county in which the project is located, as determined by the Department of Workforce Development (DWD), and may not be required or permitted to work more than ten hours per day and 40 hours per week, unless they are paid 1.5 times their basic rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of those hours. Currently, for purposes of the prevailing wage law, "local governmental unit" is defined to include a political subdivision of this state, which includes a town.

This bill raises from $25,000 to $125,000 the statutory threshold for applicability of the prevailing wage law to a highway, road, street, bridge, sanitary sewer, or water main project erected, constructed, repaired, remodeled, or demolished for a town. The bill also requires DWD to adjust the statutory thresholds for applicability of the prevailing wage law every year by the change in construction costs since the establishment of those statutory thresholds.

Who's behind it

4 senators are its authors⁠. All 4 are Democrats.

8 more lawmakers signed on in support⁠.

What it would cost

State agencies filed a cost estimate. Each opens as a PDF from the Legislature.

• Fiscal Estimate From DWD