Does Maryland require certified payroll?

Yes. Maryland's Prevailing Wage Law requires contractors and subcontractors on covered state and political-subdivision public works projects to pay prevailing wage and to submit certified payroll records. Federally funded work in Maryland is separately covered by the Davis-Bacon Act. Where both apply, you comply with both and pay the higher applicable rate.

What is the most common certified payroll mistake?

Misclassification — reporting a worker under the trade classification your accounting system uses rather than the one in the applicable wage determination for the work actually performed. It is expensive because the remedy is back wages at the rate difference for every hour worked, and it typically goes undetected for months.

What happens if certified payroll is late or missing?

The usual immediate consequence is that the contracting agency withholds payment on the application covering that period, which flows down to every sub on the job. Persistent failures escalate to investigation, back-wage assessments with liquidated damages, and potential debarment from public work.

What is certified payroll, and why Maryland GCs get it wrong

The basics

If you're a general contractor working on public jobs in Maryland, you've dealt with certified payroll. It's a federal and state requirement that ensures workers on government-funded projects are paid the prevailing wage rate for their trade and location.

Every week, contractors and subs submit certified payroll reports — WH-347 forms — documenting hours worked, classifications, and wages paid. The reports are signed under penalty of perjury.

Where it goes wrong

The problem isn't that GCs don't know certified payroll exists. The problem is that the process is manual, distributed across dozens of subs, and easy to get wrong.

Common issues we see:

Wrong classifications. A plumber's apprentice gets classified as a journeyman, or vice versa. The wage rate is wrong, and now there's a violation.
Missing subs. A sub brings on a lower-tier sub who doesn't submit certified payroll. The GC is still liable.
Late submissions. Certified payroll is supposed to be submitted weekly. In practice, it gets batched, delayed, and sometimes forgotten entirely.
Prevailing wage changes. Wage determinations change. If you're using last year's rates on this year's job, you're underpaying.

The consequences

Prevailing wage violations carry real penalties. At the federal level (Davis-Bacon), contractors can be debarred — barred from bidding on federal work — for up to three years. Maryland's state prevailing wage law carries similar enforcement mechanisms.

Beyond penalties, it's a reputation issue. GCs who can't demonstrate clean compliance lose trust with owners and agencies.

How AI changes this

We built a system that reads daily reports and determines whether certified payroll is required for each sub on the job. It cross-references contract requirements, funding sources, and wage determinations automatically.

Instead of relying on a PM to manually check every sub every week, the AI flags gaps before they become violations.

The bottom line

Certified payroll isn't optional on public work, and manual tracking isn't reliable at scale. If you're a Maryland GC running public jobs, your compliance process is either automated or it's a liability.