Senate committee hears AOT on certified payroll; members debate prevailing‑wage reporting and impact on small contractors

MONTPELIER — The Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee heard testimony from the Agency of Transportation on certified payroll procedures and spent more than two hours debating whether to require similar reporting for state prevailing‑wage construction projects.

Sonia Bover, civil rights labor compliance program manager at AOT, told the committee that AOT requires certified payroll (Davis‑Bacon) for federally funded construction projects and reviews weekly payroll submissions through a Doc Express platform. She said the agency monitors projects ranging from small jobs to multi‑million‑dollar contracts, and that most contractors who work on AOT projects have become familiar with the weekly certified‑payroll routine. Bover added that onboarding a handful of small “mom‑and‑pop” contractors can require additional staff assistance and that in some seasons — especially after emergency work such as flood recovery — new contractors unfamiliar with certified payroll have been unable or unwilling to complete the reporting.

Why it matters: Committee members framed the question as a balance between two aims — preventing misclassification and underpayment on public projects versus not…