06/19/2018

By: Brian R. Bare

Every year in June, Illinois public school districts adopt a resolution regarding the prevailing rate of wages to be paid in the locality as required by the Prevailing Wage Act.  Until now, districts also had to publish a notification in a local newspaper regarding that determination.

In 2017, the Illinois legislature adopted Public Act 100-154, which revised the Prevailing Wage Act so that certain public bodies could place a notice on their website instead of publishing that notification in a local newspaper.  However, the revision did not take effect until August, 2017, well after districts customarily adopted their prevailing wage resolutions last year.  Consequently, this is the first year that the change is in place.

The website notice can only replace the newspaper publication requirement for public bodies that rely on the Illinois Department of Labor’s determination of prevailing wages in their locality.  In addition, the website notice must include a hyperlink to the Department of Labor’s website page that contains the prevailing wage schedule.

In reviewing 2018 prevailing wage rates resolutions and ordinances from school districts and other public bodies from across the state, it seems that many of these templates have not been updated or reviewed by legal counsel recently.  For example, many of them still contain a reference to filing the adopted resolution or ordinance with the Secretary of State, a requirement that was eliminated for 2014.

If you would like to have your resolution reviewed by a Whitt Law LLC attorney, or if you have any other questions about the Prevailing Wage Act, public bidding, or contracts, please contact Senior Attorney Brian R. Bare  or Whitt Law Attorney Brittany Flaherty Theis at 630-897-8875.

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