Compliance with Ohio Prevailing Wage Laws

On June 13, 2008, the Franklin County Court of Appeals held that a county board of commissioners had properly rejected a contractor’s bid for painting work on a prevailing wage project even though the contractor submitted the lowest bid. See Associated Builders & Contractors of Central Ohio v. Fraklin County Board of Commissioners, 2008-Ohio-2870. The board claimed the contractor failed the board’s “Quality Contracting Standards”, which disqualified bidders who were “debarred from public contracts or found by the state (after all appeals) to have violated prevailing wage laws more than three times in a two-year period in the last ten years.”

The case hinged on how broadly the board interpreted and applied the “violation” language in the Quality Contracting Standards. The contractor argued that the standards should only apply to serious or intentional violations. The contractor had been cited enough times to be disqualified if “any” violation was considered, but none of the citations were found to be intentional and all were minor or settled cooperatively. The appellate court held that the board was permitted to interpret prevailing wage “violations” as broadly as possible to disqualify the painting contractor for multiple, minor violations.

The board had never applied the standard so broadly. The contractor argued that the board did not sufficiently publicize this heightened disqualification standard. The appellate court rejected that argument, stating that the board’s interpretation “reasonably comport[ed] with the actual wording” of the standard, so the court upheld the board’s disqualification of the painting contractor. In short, the court held that the board was permitted to change its position without prior notice, so long as the board’s new enforcement policy had some rational support.

The Franklin County Court of Appeals is the third appellate court in Ohio to uphold a county’s disqualification standards despite those standards excluding more contractors than the debarment provisions of Ohio’s statutory prevailing wage law. This case demonstrates that contractors risk losing future business for even minor violations of Ohio prevailing wage law. Therefore, contractors must ensure they are in compliance with applicable prevailing wage law.

Posted by: Eugene Droder III