OFFICE OF FISCAL ANALYSIS
Legislative Office Building, Room 5200
Hartford, CT 06106 (860) 240-0200
http://www.cga.ct.gov/ofa
EMERGENCY CERTIFICATION
HB-7007
AN ACT CONCERNING THE CODIFICATION OF PREVAILING
WAGE CONTRACT RATES.
OFA Fiscal Note
State Impact: See Below
Municipal Impact: See Below
Explanation
The bill modifies the method by which the Department of Labor
(DOL) is required to determine the prevailing wage for certain trades
and occupations for building, heavy and highway projects. It allows
DOL to use wage rates set in certain collective bargaining agreements
and eliminates the option for DOL to adopt the rates set by the United
States Department of Labor (USDOL), except when there is no
collective bargaining agreement for a trade or occupation in the town.
It is the current practice of DOL to adopt prevailing wage rates set
by USDOL. 1 Any change in the cost of state and municipal contracts
would depend on how the wage rates determined through the method
used by DOL differ from USDOL rates.
In FY 20, there were 1,000 state, municipal, and private construction
projects subject to prevailing wage requirements.
1Current law allows the labor commissioner to set prevailing wage rates in one of
two ways: (1) through holding a hearing to determine the prevailing wage rates on
any public work within a specified area and establishing classifications of labor, or
(2) by adopting the federally-determined prevailing wage rates.
Primary Analyst: DD; CW 9/30/20
Contributing Analyst(s):
2020HB-07007-R00-FN.DOCX Page 2 of 2
The bill also results in a potential General Fund cost to DOL, the
amount of which is dependent on the method the agency chooses to
determine prevailing wage rates, as the agency would no longer be
allowed to utilize federally-determined rates except in limited
circumstances.
The Out Years
State Impact: See Above
Municipal Impact: See Above
The preceding Fiscal Impact statement is prepared for the benefit of the members of the General Assembly,
solely for the purposes of information, summarization and explanation and does not represent the intent of the
General Assembly or either chamber thereof for any purpose. In general, fiscal impacts are based upon a variety
of informational sources, including the analysts professional knowledge. Whenever applicable, agency data is
consulted as part of the analysis, however final products do not necessarily reflect an assessment from any
specific department.