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Political Struggle Over Prevailing Wage
| Latest NewsA new state interpretation of Illinois’ prevailing wage law has the town of Mount Prospect in a tight financial bind. Municipalities will now be required to pay a higher wage for public works projects, including landscape work.
Illinois’ prevailing wage law is nothing new. It requires that workers on public projects collect wages in line with those paid for private jobs. More often than not, this wage level is set by the Illinois Department of Labor.
Until recently, the understanding of villages like Mount Prospect was that the prevailing wage rules applied to construction work and not to non-construction, maintenance and landscape work. The Department of Labor disabused them of that notion in 2011, stating unequivocally on their website that the law covered landscape work.
For Mount Prospect, a municipality struggling to gain control of an emerald ash borer infestation, the new interpretation couldn’t come at a worse time. “This is like a backdoor unfunded mandate,” said Mount Prospect Village Manager Michael Janonis. “It smacks of politics, and it shouldn’t be that way.” The Mount Prospect Village Board estimates that the new requirements will cost the village an additional $790,000.
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