SCA Conformances

A Service Contract Act wage determination lists the occupations the Wage and Hour Division expects on service contracts in a locality, drawn from the SCA Directory of Occupations, with a wage for each. Contracts routinely call for work the list does not name. The conformance procedure is how a contractor obtains a classification and a wage for such work, and it is written into every covered contract as the clause at 29 CFR 4.6(b)(2). This page describes the procedure as the clause and the Wage and Hour Division’s Prevailing Wage Resource Book state it. The Davis-Bacon counterpart, under 29 CFR 5.5(a)(1)(iii), is mentioned on the Davis-Bacon basics page.

When a conformance is needed

The clause applies when a class of service employee to be used on the contract is not listed in the attached determination, that is, when the work to be performed is not performed by any listed classification. It is not a route to a lower wage for work a listed occupation already covers: the Resource Book’s conformance principles state that a conformance will not be approved for duties that fall within a listed classification, that a determination’s occupations are to be read by their Directory descriptions rather than the contractor’s titles, and that the process may not be used to split or subdivide a listed class.

The procedure

The contractor must initiate the conformance before the unlisted class begins contract work, and must submit a written report of the proposed classification and wage to the contracting officer no later than 30 days after the class first performs work. The report states whether the employees’ authorized representative, or where there is none the employees themselves, agree or disagree with the proposal; contracting officers may ask for Standard Form 1444, though the Department of Labor does not require it. The contracting officer reviews the proposal and forwards it, with the agency’s recommendation and the positions of the contractor and the employees, to the Wage and Hour Division. The Division approves, modifies or disapproves the action, or decides the matter where the parties disagree, within 30 days of receipt, or notifies the agency that it needs more time. The contracting officer then tells the contractor the result, and the contractor gives each affected employee a copy of the determination or posts it with the wage determination.

Whatever wage is finally set applies from the first day the class performed contract work, not from the approval date, and paying the class less than the conformed rate for the intervening period is a violation (4.6(b)(2)(v)). If a contractor never raises a conformance and the omission comes to light, the Division makes the determination itself, retroactive to the start of the work (4.6(b)(2)(vi)). A conformed wage may not in any event fall below the federal minimum wage under section 6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

What “reasonable relationship” means

The clause requires the conformed class to be paid a wage that bears a reasonable relationship, described as an appropriate comparison of skill levels, to the classifications already on the determination. Paragraph (b)(2)(iv)(A) says this cannot be reduced to a single formula. Acceptable approaches include standard wage and salary administration practices that rank jobs by pay grade through point schemes or job factors, the way comparable jobs are graded under the federal pay systems (the Federal Wage System and the General Schedule, whose tables this site publishes), and other wage determinations issued in the same locality. The principle throughout is that the pay relationship between jobs should track the skill required and the duties performed. The fringe benefits for a conformed class are those the determination already prescribes, including the nationwide health and welfare rate; only the wage is conformed.

Indexing on a follow-on contract

When a contract is modified, extended or has an option exercised, or a successor contractor takes over work on which a class was previously conformed, paragraph (b)(2)(iv)(B) allows the conformed wage to be carried forward by indexing: the previous conformed wage and fringe benefits are adjusted by the average percentage change between the rates for all classifications used on the contract in the current determination and the rates for the same classifications in the previous one. A contractor that indexes before the class performs work advises the contracting officer of the action but need not repeat the full report-and-review procedure.

What this site can and cannot show

The occupations on an SCA determination are the Directory’s, and the conformed wage is set relative to that determination, not to any survey. The occupation pages on this site show Bureau of Labor Statistics wage distributions by SOC occupation, a different classification system from the Directory, and a figure from them is not a conformed rate and is not evidence of one. SAM.gov’s wage determinations site carries the Division’s guidance on preparing a conformance request; the decision that governs a contract is the one issued for it. How to find the determination in the first place is on how to look up a wage determination.