About this time each year, Illinois public bodies begin putting together their annual prevailing wage ordinances or resolutions to present to their boards and councils for approval in June so the ordinance or resolution can be filed with the Department of Labor by the July 15th statutory deadline of the Prevailing Wage Act. Not this year, though. As we reported previously, the Illinois General Assembly enacted P.A. 100-1177 to amend the Prevailing Wage Act to eliminate the requirement that public bodies adopt an ordinance or resolution to “ascertain” prevailing wages. That new law takes effect June 1, 2019, just in time to eliminate this year’s requirement of adopting an ordinance or resolution.
Moving forward, instead of every public body adopting an ordinance or resolution ascertaining prevailing wages, the Department will ascertain the prevailing wage for them. Of course, the underlying statutory requirement that public bodies pay prevailing wages for work covered by the Act still exists, but the annual obligation to adopt a prevailing wage ordinance or resolution will be eliminated on June 1st.