Dear Colleagues: Sorry for the delay in posting the results of my survey. Some of the Cities that responded referred me to their CDBG office and the bottom line is that the City is on the hook for certifying the payroll for prevailing wage on federally-funded projects. The City of Imperial Beach has been certifying payroll with a contractor on weekly basis, with the contractor providing payroll timesheets showing his employees being paid at prevailing wages. When the field audit was conducted with several employees of the subject contractor, the employees stated that they were not being paid prevailing wages. Our City's question was "how far should the City go in certifying prevailing wage payroll"? The other question was "how much can you withhold from the contractor's payments". The Cities responding stated that their due diligence included obtaining copies of cancelled checks to make sure that the contractor's payroll records were not just made up. Member Cities also stated that they were retaining the difference between the required prevailing wage and the actual wages paid to employees. The burden of proof was on the contractor/employer.
