Your First Davis-Bacon Job: The Week-Zero Checklist

The subs who have a bad first prevailing-wage job almost always lose it in week zero, before any work happened. Here is the short list that prevents that.

1. Get the wage determination out of the contract

Ask your prime for the determination number and modification if it is not already in your subcontract package. Confirm it matches the project's county and construction type. Save a copy; the version incorporated into the contract is your rate schedule for the whole job even when newer modifications publish. You can pull the full text on SAM.gov or through our generator, which lists your state's determinations and loads the classification table for you.

2. Map every worker to a classification, in writing

Sit down once with the determination's classification list and write the mapping: who is an electrician, who is a common laborer, who splits time and will appear on two lines. Two rules:

• The classification follows the work performed each hour, not the job title.
• If the work you will perform has no classification on the determination, stop and request a conformance through your prime before that work starts.

3. Make the fringe decision now

Every classification carries base plus fringe. Decide before week one how you satisfy the fringe: bona fide plan contributions, cash on the paycheck, or a mix. If you have no formal benefit plans, cash in lieu is the clean answer. If you will claim plan credits, gather each plan's name, type, and number now, because page 2 of the WH-347 asks for them weekly. The fringe guide has the math, including why fringe applies to overtime hours.

4. Paper your apprentices

Apprentice rates below the journeyworker minimum are lawful only for workers registered in a bona fide apprenticeship program (Office of Apprenticeship or a recognized state agency). Have the program name and registration handy; the current WH-347 asks you to identify the program and certify the registration. An unregistered "apprentice" is, for wage purposes, a journeyworker owed full rate.

5. Set up daily time records

Certified payroll wants hours by day, split straight time and overtime. A crew lead's end-of-day text with hours per worker is enough input; what matters is that it exists daily, not reconstructed Thursday night.

6. Build the Friday routine

Pick the weekly slot when payroll gets done, and treat the WH-347 as part of paying your people, not separate paperwork. The sequence every week: hours in, math done, form filled, statement read and signed, submitted to your prime, copy filed. Records stay available for three years after completion, so the filing system you start in week one is the audit defense you will rely on in year three.

7. Know your two numbers

Before the job starts you should be able to answer, from memory, for your main classification: the base rate and the fringe rate. Everything else flows from those two numbers, and the crews notice when the person running payroll knows them cold.