Empowering Communities to Showcase Success
Prevailing wage laws have given astounding results since their inception. They provide a two-fold benefit of improving quality of living and lowering burdens for American taxpayers. LCPtracker has developed technology to meet Davis-Bacon certified payroll and other prevailing wage compliance requirements, but in recent years, we’ve discovered this same technology yielded an unexpected boon: local communities have been using the system to also track their worker hiring goals. This has proven both transformative for disadvantaged individuals and the communities in which they live.
With advances in technology and the laws requiring government agencies to collect prevailing wage certified payroll and worker data, the economic impact of public works projects is more visible than ever. Local communities are leveraging this data to ensure their workforce hiring programs are successful with concrete statistical results. Not only can government agencies and cities track wages, but they can also track the type of people they hire, where they live, and their skill levels. They can then use this information to make data-driven decisions on policy and laws that will aid in missions to improve the quality of life for the community.
Check out this article about how Davis-Bacon empowers communities.
City of Seattle
Using technology, the City of Seattle has been able to set and track priority hire goals to transform their city. Jeanne Fulcher, Labor Equity Analyst for the City was able to explain the impact of being able to see real data and statistics. Thanks to certified payroll reporting software, the City was able to look at past data from their projects and realized that only 6% of the project hours were going to local workers. They acted quickly and developed a priority hire program. After a year, the city has seen amazing results with “three times increase in local workers, three times more women, and a huge increase in [female apprentices].”
Their priority hire program was developed with 4 goals:
- Address projected worker shortage (anticipated shortage of 4,630 construction workers in King county by 2020)
- Provide contractors with access to trained workforce
- Create a diverse construction workforce by adding more women and increasing diversity
- Create economic growth in economically distressed areas
The city has been able to target economically distressed areas by requiring hires to come from zip codes that have been identified as containing residents that are living 200% under the poverty level, have high unemployment, and do not have college degrees. They must also hire apprentices and graduates from pre-apprentice programs.
Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago Transit Authority has sought compliance with the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), a federal program that provides training for people who are out of work and need training to change career paths or whose skills need improving in order to obtain a new job. Utilizing LCPtracker has allowed them to track progress and address areas in need of improvement.
Emerald Cities Collaborative
Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC) is a non-profit organization that provides assistance to disadvantaged individuals on re-entering the workforce. Veronica Soto, Director of ECC Los Angeles, joined us to discuss how LCPtracker’s certified payroll reporting software allows them to track their successes.
Want to learn more about workforce reporting?
Join us at our Ignite Conference
Every year we dedicate ourselves to providing the best, most intensive training and education conference on the market. We bring in speakers from all levels of the construction compliance industry to share important updates and best practices. Our speakers have included representatives from the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), government agencies, large prime contractors, large subcontractors, as well as renowned industry experts.
These specialists, combined with hands-on software training, create an atmosphere of learning in which attendees leave with a deeper understanding of compliance requirements and how to use the LCPtracker system to achieve them.
In addition to compliance updates and certified payroll reporting software training, the conference also encompasses trending topics in workforce development, such as women in construction and diversity and inclusion.