Associated Builders and Contractors of West Virginia (ABCWV) echoed the concerns of several West Virginia legislators over the newly presented methodology for the calculation of prevailing wage rates in West Virginia. Workforce West Virginia released a summary of their report on June 1, 2015 which displayed how the new methodology would ultimately determine the new rates on state funded public improvements.
Workforce West Virginia presented the newly created methodology to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance on June 8, 2015. During the meeting, a number of questions were raised voicing concerns about whether the implementation of this methodology is being implemented in a manner consistent with the intent of the law itself.
“ABCWV is disappointed in Workforce West Virginia’s omission of several integral components that were added to the new prevailing wage methodology to produce an accurate market wage rate,” said ABCWV President Bryan Hoylman. “The bill carefully crafted by the legislature during this year’s legislative session required the inclusion of essential U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data and removed a government mandated fringe benefit from the prevailing wage methodology in order to calculate a true prevailing wage in West Virginia. “Unfortunately, Workforce West Virginia has not included valuable BLS data and kept a mandated fringe benefit as a part of the calculation, contrary to the intent of the law. By directly ignoring key portions of the carefully balanced new methodology, Workforce West Virginia is threatening the hard work of the legislature and outside stakeholders, including ABCWV, in developing a carefully balanced new methodology.”
During yesterday’s committee meeting, it was noted by lawmakers that minimal effort was made to publish the new prevailing rate of wages by July 1, 2015. Lawmakers voted down a motion to extend the deadline to September 30, 2015 and extended their efforts by adding an internal review of how the methodology was created along with providing formal correspondence expressing lawmakers’ concerns that Workforce West Virginia is not complying with the statute.
“ABC was pleased with the outcome of yesterday’s committee meeting and appreciate the legislature’s unwillingness to see their hard work in compromising to create a new and fair prevailing wage methodology be derailed,” stated Hoylman. “However, we recognize that there is significant work yet to be done. I trust that lawmakers will continue in their effort to create an accurate depiction of market based wage rates that will drastically change the way the state does business and provide significant advantage to the industry and to the taxpayers. Conversely, we will keep a close eye on these proceedings as they continue to unfold and are currently weighing every available option we have to ensure that government doesn’t get in the way of this historic reform.”
With regard to the potential for a temporary repeal of the state’s prevailing wage rates, Hoylman added “This is something our contractors deal with on a daily basis in the free market. There will not be any major adjustments necessary; they will simply bid state funded improvements as they would any other project, with wage rates that are based on current market conditions.”
West Virginia is one of 32 states with a prevailing wage law in place for contractors who do business with the state. Indiana fully repealed its prevailing wage law earlier this year and several other states are currently considering a full repeal or significant reform to their existing prevailing wage law.
