The Challenge

As California’s Department of Transportation, Caltrans is responsible for overseeing all the transportation projects in California. It currently manages over $11.5 billion worth of construction for roughly 800 public works projects. And when you consider that the agency is split into 12 different districts – each previously having had its own database and separate labor compliance processes prior to adopting LCPtracker Pro – you can begin to understand the tremendous amount of work that its 55+ compliance officers needed to tackle.

At the higher level, some of their biggest challenges stemmed from the lack of continuity in how each district tracked compliance. Some would update spreadsheets; others would use a combination of various applications. A few even tried developing and paying for their own proprietary software, but everyone ultimately was tracking different things using different methods – many of which were manual and vulnerable to human error.

On a more granular level, contractors were often completing certified payroll reports (CPRs) by hand and submitting them by mail or fax. Duplicate submissions were an issue as well since some contractors would send via both mediums just to be safe. These hard copies (in addition to corrected CPRs that were resubmitted) ultimately contributed to huge stacks of paper CPRs taller than the Caltrans employees, themselves.

And this was just the beginning of the agency’s challenges. Compliance staff would then have to cross-reference documents for accuracy, notify contractors of violations, and submit annual reports to other state or federal requesting bodies – just to name a few. Each of these tasks were very time-consuming and prevented staff from adequately performing investigations and other enforcement activities.

The Solution

With the adoption of LCPtracker Pro, Caltrans was able to implement a uniform, statewide system that leveraged electronic submission and documentation. Every contractor and subcontractor could send CPRs through the web-based application and they would be safely and securely stored in the cloud.

Furthermore, the software provided Caltrans control so that it could tailor the solution to meet their most crucial needs. Administrative staff could set up which validation checks the application will run against CPRs to automatically help in detecting violations. The system’s functionality also allowed them to apply both state and federal wage determination checks when a project has mixed funding – something other products on the market lacked. And if other specific documents and signatures were needed from contractors, administrators can set them as requirements in the submission process as well.

Additionally, Caltrans is now able to track more granular processes and information that federal and state government agencies require of them. They can now easily run reports with consistent data across all districts for requesting bodies like the CA Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), the United States Department of Labor (USDOL), and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

Benefits

First and foremost, LCPtracker Pro allowed Caltrans to alleviate their compliance staff’s workload that was bogged down by routine CPR intake and review functions. There was a significant decrease in the amount of time spent on logging, filing, and cross-referencing the tens of thousands of compliance documents received monthly. Not to mention, the physical storage of those paper records (which needed to be retained for audit purposes for up to three years) is now reduced to cloud-based storage, and they can be retrieved with just a few clicks.

From a management level, Caltrans could track staff workload like they never had before. The software allowed them to better monitor progress on specific projects and assess performance. They found increased productivity and, most importantly, were able to achieve a more thorough level of labor compliance by mitigating human error and identifying violations faster. Time savings could be repurposed and applied to other compliance enforcement duties that were previously handcuffed, like performing field wage interviews on the project site and investigating complaints.

When it came to reporting, staff saw a big reduction in the time it took to compile statewide data for the DIR, the USDOL, and the FHWA. In fact, Caltrans can now collect and report on additional data that they simply could not prior. Plus, LCPtracker has security measures in place that helped protect the sensitive information contained in the system and met their IT team’s requirements. The biggest win here was implementing third party authentication for their administrator logins which helped ensure that access to the site and its data wasn’t falling into the wrong hands.