Case Study
The Challenge
With a population of nearly 400,000, the City of New Orleans is the largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. This, of course, can create some challenges for a municipality tasked with enforcing prevailing wage compliance. For this city, however, it was more than just that. They had developed programs to reinvest in the local community in an effort to recreate and update the metropolis with new, modern infrastructure, while also reinvigorating the local economy.
Even going as far back as the introduction of Hire NOLA program in 2015, the municipality sought to employ more local workers on its projects – which meant a colossal amount of tracking and reporting was needed. It aimed not only to increase the percentage of local hires employed on City-funded projects, but also to implement goals in hiring disadvantaged individuals in the area as well. And the City of New Orleans needed a way to report on this progress.
The Solution
With LCPtracker Pro, the City has been able to seamlessly process certified payrolls (CPRs) for its public works construction projects – all delivered electronically from its contractors within the SaaS-based (Software as a Service) system. The collection of these CPRs allows for in-depth, employee demographic data to be captured and reported on, giving the needed ability to track and observe progress on Hire NOLA goals.
The software provides the City visibility on where workers are coming from, whether they qualify as disadvantaged, which classifications they work, as well as the amount of hours worked. Most importantly, they can confirm with a few clicks that all workers have been paid the proper prevailing wage and utilize the Late Report feature to help ensure contractors are not slipping under the radar. The information contractors entered on these reports then allows the City of New Orleans to track their goals. Thus, they can recognize and fix issues as they arise.
Benefits
The use of LCPtracker Pro allowed the City of New Orleans to broaden their horizons when it comes to project reporting. They were able to expand to track locally funded projects in addition to those federally funded. The City’s decision makers and the community are then able to consider the impact each project is having. The biggest benefits, however, come from the prevailing wage compliance features, more specifically, the ability to upload classifications and their respective wage rates to use as bench marks that are automatically checked against contractors’ CPRs. This is what helps ensure employees are classified and paid properly.
Moving forward, the City has come to appreciate what a valuable tool the system can be to their strategies and urban planning. The extensive workforce reports available provide a wide range of data to allow for an in-depth analysis of project impact and goal tracking.
Understand the impact of their program and effectively track workforce goals
Have greater assurance that their workers are classfied and paid properly
Make it easier to monitor and enforce the compliance of their contractors