The Certified Payroll Blues

As it's the New Year, I thought I'd talk about one of my pet peeves ... certified payrolls. Yes, certified payrolls. Such a fascinating topic. It never ceases to amaze me that contractors routinely fail to complete properly a simple, certified payroll document for a public works project. A certified payroll document is fairly self-explanatory and straightforward, requiring (among other things) information as to work classification, days and dates worked, hourly rate paid, number of hours worked each day, and whether the hours worked were straight time and/or overtime. Simple, right? Apparently not. I have seen certified payrolls which don't even come close to providing the information required. Information is either missing or misplaced on the document; for example: (a) days and dates of work are not listed; (b) straight time hours are listed as overtime hours, and vice versa; and/or (c) a signed certification is missing. What gives? Then, the contractor looks like a deer caught in the headlights when given a hard time by governmental authorities.

It's really simple, folks. If the certified payroll process is not taken seriously by contractors, then they have only themselves to blame for any future problem attributable to those payrolls. Here, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of good. Happy New Year!