EP 1180-1-1
1 Aug 01
employed under the SCA-covered contract, the number to be employed, and the hourly wage rates that
would be paid if such workers were Federal direct hires. The SF 98 includes instructions for proper
completion. While all requested information is important for the proper issuance of the wage
determination, certain items are critical, as noted in paragraphs a through e below.
a. Procurement Dates (SF 98, Blocks 2,3,4). Procurement dates are important for evaluating the
timeliness of requests and the Wage Determination (WD) response issued by the DOL. In addition, these
dates are important to the evaluation of the currency of data sources to be used in developing the WD
and the proper tracking of annual vs. multi-year service contracts. It is noted that for multi-year contracts
not subject to annual appropriations, a written statement describing the type of funding and anticipated
term of the proposed contract must be attached to the SF 98 request. As discussed in paragraph 4-3,
this type of multi-year service contract requires a new wage determination issuance at least every two
years.
b. Place(s) of Performance (SF 98, Block 5). Listing the city, county, and state of the location(s)
where the services called for will be performed is important to the development of the WD. It is
particularly important to list the county inasmuch as the DOL indexes its wage determinations by county.
The failure to include the county may delay the DOL's response. Prevailing, area-wide WDs are based
on wage rates and fringe benefits determined to be prevailing within the locality of the place of
performance. The place of performance could be the contractor's site, a government installation, or
elsewhere. Where the place(s) of performance of an SCA- covered contract is unknown at the time of
solicitation, bid specifications may be issued without a WD. Under these circumstances, a two-step
solicitation process may be used. In the first step, the contracting agency will issue an initial solicitation
with no WD, from which it identifies all interested bidders or offerors and their possible places of
performance and then transmits this information to DOL with the SF 98. In the second step, DOL will
issue separate WDs for the various localities identified in the first step, to be incorporated in the
solicitation prior to the submission of final bids or offers. The appropriate WD applicable to the
geographic location of the successful bidder shall be incorporated in the resultant contract and shall be
observed, regardless of whether the contractor subsequently changes the place(s) of contract
performance. For unusual situations where this two-step procedure may not be practical, the matter
should be brought to the attention of the District Labor Advisor for coordination with CECC-C and the
DOL.
c. Services to be Performed (SF 98, Block 6). A clear and complete description of the type or
4-3
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