Ohio Prevailing Wage

Yes. Ohio's prevailing wage law is Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4115, Wages and Hours on Public Works, running from ORC 4115.03 through 4115.16. It is administered by the Director of Commerce, and the Ohio Department of Commerce's Division of Industrial Compliance, Wage and Hour publishes the commercial prevailing wage rates for every construction trade in every jurisdiction in the state. Unlike Indiana and unlike Michigan between 2018 and 2024, Ohio's law has stayed on the books.

ORC 4115.03 sets them by project type. For a public improvement other than road and bridge work, prevailing wage attaches when the cost is over $250,000 for new construction, or over $75,000 for reconstruction, enlargement, alteration, repair, remodeling, renovation, or painting. The U.S. Department of Labor's state threshold table lists Ohio at the same $250,000 for new construction and $75,000 for remodeling. Road, street, alley, sewer, ditch and similar work has its own lower thresholds, which are adjusted every two years.

ORC 4115.03 states the road and bridge figures as over $78,258 for new construction and over $23,447 for reconstruction, enlargement, alteration, repair, remodeling, renovation, or painting, and then requires those figures to be adjusted. Under ORC 4115.034 the Director of Commerce adjusts the threshold levels on the first day of January of every even-numbered year using the average change in the Engineering News-Record construction cost index for the two preceding years, with no single year's increase or decrease exceeding three per cent. Because of that ratchet, the current published road and bridge thresholds are higher than the figures printed in the statute. Get the current numbers from the Department of Commerce before you rely on them; we do not publish a threshold figure we cannot confirm on a state page.

No. ORC 4115.033 says no public authority shall subdivide a public improvement project into component parts or projects whose cost is fairly estimated to be less than the threshold levels in ORC 4115.03. Subdivision is allowed only where the separate projects are conceptually distinct and unrelated, or address independent needs.

The Ohio Department of Commerce runs a Prevailing Wage Portal at pwr.com.ohio.gov, which publishes the active commercial prevailing wage rates for all construction trades in all jurisdictions within the state, for projects governed by ORC Chapter 4115. Access is through registration and login. Separately, ORC 4115.04 requires the public authority, before advertising for bids or doing the work with its own forces, to have the Director of Commerce determine the prevailing rates of wages, so the schedule for your project should come to you with the contract.

ORC 4115.04(B) lists the exemptions, and two matter most in practice. Federally funded work is exempt where the federal government or one of its agencies furnishes all or any part of the funds by loan or grant and prescribes predetermined minimum wages for mechanics and laborers, which means Davis-Bacon takes over rather than the state law applying on top. Public improvements undertaken by or under contract for a school district board of education or an educational service center governing board are also exempt. The section additionally exempts certain county and municipal hospital improvements, projects described in ORC 176.05(D)(1)(a) to (e), port authority improvements, certain work activity program labor, and any portion of a public improvement completed solely with donated labor.

Yes, and it goes to a specific person. Under ORC 4115.071 each contracting public authority must designate and appoint one of its own employees as the prevailing wage coordinator. The contractor or subcontractor delivers to that coordinator a certified copy of its payroll within two weeks after the initial pay date, then supplemental reports for each month thereafter. If the life of the contract is expected to be no more than four months, the supplemental reports are filed each week instead of monthly.

ORC 4115.071 requires each report to show, for each employee, the employee's name, current address, the last four digits of the employee's Social Security number, the number of hours worked during each day of the pay periods covered and the total for each week, the employee's hourly rate of pay, the employee's job classification, fringe payments, and deductions from wages. Note that Ohio asks for the current address, which the federal WH-347 does not carry on a submitted copy.

Under ORC 4115.071 the coordinator maintains the payroll files for public inspection, determines payment dates, receives and monitors payroll submissions, establishes procedures for compliance, collects the final affidavits, and reports filing delinquencies to agency leadership and to the Director of Commerce. If you cannot work out where your certified payroll goes on an Ohio job, the coordinator is the person to ask, and the contracting public authority has to have one.

ORC 4115.07 requires contractors and subcontractors to keep full and accurate payroll records of wages paid to each employee and hours worked by each employee, open to inspection by any authorized representative of the contracting public authority, including the prevailing wage coordinator, or by the Director of Commerce at any reasonable time. Those records may not be destroyed or removed from the state for one year following completion of the public improvement. On completion and before final payment, each contractor and subcontractor files an affidavit with the contracting public authority stating full compliance with ORC 4115.03 to 4115.16.

Yes. ORC 4115.07 requires a legible statement of the schedule of wage rates to be posted in a prominent and accessible place on the site of the work, or on the internet in a manner accessible to the contractor's or subcontractor's employees. ORC 4115.05 separately requires the contractor to furnish each employee individual written notification that separates compensation into the hourly rate of pay and the fringe payments.

ORC 4115.10 lets the employee recover the difference between the fixed rate of wages and the amount actually paid, plus a sum equal to twenty-five per cent of that difference as damages, and requires the employer to pay the Director a penalty of seventy-five per cent of the difference. An employee has ninety days from the Director's determination of a violation to bring the action. ORC 4115.13 defines an intentional violation as a willful, knowing, or deliberate failure to comply and provides for restitution plus a bar on contracting for public improvements. Under ORC 4115.133 a first intentional violation carries a one-year bar and a subsequent one carries three years.

They do not stack. ORC 4115.04(B)(1) exempts a public improvement where the federal government or one of its agencies furnishes all or part of the funds by loan or grant and prescribes predetermined minimum wages, so on a federally funded Ohio job you follow Davis-Bacon: the wage determination in the contract, weekly certified payroll to the contracting or sponsoring agency within 7 days after the regular payment date (29 CFR 3.4(a)), and the Statement of Compliance under 29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(ii)(C). Davis-Bacon covers contracts in excess of $2,000 for construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works, and the Related Acts extend it to federally assisted work.

We produce the certified payroll records you submit. Enter hours by day and classification and we calculate straight time, overtime, the fringe credit and cash in lieu, then generate a certified report carrying the worker, classification, daily and weekly hours, hourly rate, fringe payments and deductions your Ohio coordinator asks for, plus the federal WH-347 for Davis-Bacon work in Ohio. Lydia flags wages below the rate you entered for the classification before you certify. You file with the prevailing wage coordinator or the federal agency; we do not submit anything to any agency on your behalf.