Davis-Bacon certified payroll: the rules behind every line

Every week you perform work on a Davis-Bacon contract, you owe the contracting agency a certified payroll. The DOL's Form WH-347 is the familiar way to file it, though the form itself is optional: what is required is the information on it and a signed Statement of Compliance. Here is where each requirement comes from, in the current regulations as amended in 2023.

One payroll for every week with covered work

Contractors and subcontractors "must submit weekly, for each week in which any DBA- or Related Acts-covered work is performed," a certified payroll (29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(ii)(A)). Payrolls are numbered in order, so a skipped week shows up as a gap in the numbers. Many agencies also ask for a "no work performed" payroll for idle weeks so the sequence stays unbroken.

What the records must show

Your payroll records have to show, for each worker, the rate of pay, daily and weekly hours, deductions, and actual wages paid (29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(i)(B)). Keep them for at least three years after all the work on the prime contract is completed (5.5(a)(3)(i)(A)).

The rate: base plus fringe, at least once a week

Each laborer and mechanic is paid at least the wage determination's basic hourly rate plus its fringe benefit rate for the classification of work they actually performed, "unconditionally and not less often than once a week" (29 CFR 5.5(a)(1)(i)).

The fringe part can be met in cash, through bona fide benefit plans, or a combination of the two (29 CFR 5.31). In practice:

Determination says	You pay	Result
$45.00 base + $25.00 fringe	$45.00 base + $25.00 to a pension and health plan	Meets the rate
$45.00 base + $25.00 fringe	$70.00 straight cash	Meets the rate
$45.00 base + $25.00 fringe	$50.00 base + $15.00 to plans	Short $5.00 an hour

Overtime is figured on the base rate only

Hours over 40 in the workweek are paid at not less than one and one-half times the basic rate of pay (29 CFR 5.5(b)(1); 40 U.S.C. 3702). Fringe is left out of the overtime calculation (29 CFR 5.32). On a $45.00 + $25.00 rate, an overtime hour is $67.50 plus the $25.00 fringe, not 1.5 × $70.00.

Apprentices

Only apprentices individually registered in a registered program can be paid less than the full rate, and only at the program's rate. An apprentice working beyond the program's ratio to journeyworkers is owed the full wage determination rate for those hours (29 CFR 5.5(a)(4)(i)).

A trade the determination doesn't list

If someone on the job does work the wage determination has no classification for, the contracting officer has to approve an additional classification and rate before it can be paid. That request goes on Standard Form 1444 (29 CFR 5.5(a)(1)(iii)).

Salaried supervisors

People employed in a bona fide executive, administrative or professional capacity, as defined in 29 CFR part 541, are not "laborers or mechanics" (29 CFR 5.2). Working foremen who spend more than 20 percent of their time in a workweek on laborer or mechanic duties, and don't meet the part 541 tests, are covered for the time so spent.

The signature

Each certified payroll is accompanied by a Statement of Compliance signed by the contractor or subcontractor (29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(ii)(C)). Falsifying it may subject the signer to civil or criminal prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 1001 and 31 U.S.C. 3729 (5.5(a)(3)(ii)(F)).

When a week comes up short

Underpaid workers are owed the difference in full. The agency can withhold contract payments to cover it (29 CFR 5.5(a)(2)), and a contractor found to have disregarded its obligations to workers can be debarred for three years (29 CFR 5.12(a)(1)). Finding the shortfall yourself, paying it, and filing a revised payroll is far cheaper than an auditor finding it.

Checking it before you sign

Most of these mistakes are arithmetic: a fringe short by a dollar, overtime figured on base plus fringe, a trade picked from the wrong line of the determination. That is what software can check every week before anyone signs. CertifyWage reads the wage determination from the contract, checks every worker's base, fringe and overtime against it, prices any shortfall in dollars, and builds the WH-347 and the Statement of Compliance for signature.