Per H.B. 1729, signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson, a series of reforms are in store for Missouri’s prevailing wage law. The legislation, effective Aug. 28, will implement a threshold of $75,000 for the prevailing wage to apply to public works projects, and it will prohibit public bodies from subdividing the total project cost into smaller contracts for the purpose of lowering the cost below the $75,000 threshold. Currently, no monetary threshold is in place to trigger prevailing wage requirements.
Another provision of the plan replaces the prevailing wage with a new formula based on the county’s public works contracting wage if there are less than 1,000 reportable hours of pay for a trade in the given county or locality. The Missouri Senate passed the bill by a 22 to 9 vote, and the House of Representatives followed suit with a 97 to 50 vote.
