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Work group backs small per-hour assessment and higher fee cap to shore up BOLI funding

Senate Interim Committee on Labor and Business · January 13, 2026
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Summary

A bipartisan work group proposed using a 0.2-cent-per-hour Worker Benefit Fund assessment (split 50/50 between employers and employees) combined with raising the prevailing-wage filing cap to about $12,500 to generate roughly $20.5 million for BOLI; questions remain over exemptions, calendar timing and MLAC review.

A bipartisan work group convened by the Bureau of Labor and Industries recommended this week that the Legislature pursue two modest revenue changes to create a stable, ongoing funding stream for the bureau.

Justin Antino Viatoro, deputy commissioner for BOLI, told the Senate Interim Committee on Labor and Business that the group's near-consensus proposal combines (1) raising the prevailing-wage filing cap from $7,500 to $12,500 and (2) using the existing Worker Benefit Fund (WBF) assessment mechanism to create a separate account for bureau operations. "When we looked back at the previous two years this would have netted the bureau about $1.5 million from the prevailing wage cap change," he said, and the WBF assessment approach was estimated to produce…

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