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California prevailing wage law applies to public works contracts of more than $1,000; Section 1771 itself excepts public works projects of $1,000 or less. Above that line the only further relief is conditional: under §1771.5(a) an awarding body that the Director of Industrial Relations has approved to enforce a labor compliance program may choose not to require prevailing wage on a project of $25,000 or less for construction, or $15,000 or less for alteration, demolition, repair or maintenance. The same two figures separately govern DIR registration under §1771.1(n).

Labor Code §1770 and §1773 make the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations determine the general prevailing rate for each craft and locality, and the rate in effect when the work is performed is the one owed. A contractor cannot set the rate even with the agency's blessing. The awarding body must state in its call for bids that the rates apply, but it copies the Director's determination rather than writing its own. A city council sets its own budget, not the wage determination.

Labor Code §1725.5 requires annual registration with the DIR, and the registration must be current before the contractor bids, is listed on a bid, is awarded work, or performs covered public work. The CSLB issues the licence but runs no public works registry, so the first option invents a programme. The building department issues permits and inspects; it has no role in wage compliance. The U.S. Department of Labor administers Davis-Bacon on federally funded jobs, not California registration.

Labor Code §1776 requires certified payroll to go to the Labor Commissioner, and on a DIR-monitored job §1771.4(a)(3) makes that submission electronic and at least monthly. The CSLB collects renewal fees and never sees payroll. The IRS receives employment tax returns, which report totals to the government rather than certified per-worker records for a project. On public work the owner is the public agency, and it receives records under §1776(b) as the awarding body, not as an owner approving progress payments.

The prevailing wage is made up of a basic hourly rate plus employer payments for fringe benefits such as health care, pension, and training. The total package must meet the DIR determination.

Civil Code §9550 requires the direct contractor on a public works contract over $25,000 to give a payment bond before work begins, and §9554(a) requires an admitted surety insurer to execute it; it exists because subcontractors and suppliers cannot lien public property. A mechanics lien is the private-works remedy and cannot attach here at all. The CSLB licence bond is a $25,000 bond that answers to injured parties generally and is not doubled for public work. The disciplinary bond under B&P §7071.8 is imposed as a condition of licence reinstatement, not by the public works contract.

Since public property cannot be liened, an unpaid claimant on a public works project serves a stop payment notice on the public agency, which must then withhold enough project funds to cover the claim.

Labor Code §1777.5 requires the contractor to give the approved apprenticeship committee notice of the award on a DAS-140 under 8 CCR §230, request dispatch, and employ apprentices at the required ratio. Union membership is irrelevant; the programme, not the union, dispatches. Apprentices are paid the apprentice rate in the determination for their period of training, never double the journeyman rate. No residency rule exists: the rate is set by county, but the workers need not live there.

Labor Code §1775(a) makes the contractor pay the wage difference and adds a civil penalty of up to $200 per worker per calendar day, which the Labor Commissioner assesses and the awarding body withholds under §1726. The statute provides no warning-only disposition. A worker cannot bargain away the prevailing rate, so consent is no defence. Licence revocation is a separate CSLB proceeding that may follow a referral, and it is never automatic.

Labor Code §1773.2 makes the awarding body specify the rates in the call for bids and the CONTRACTOR post the applicable determination at each job site, in a place the crew can see, so a worker can check the rate for their own craft. That split of duties is what option (b) gets wrong: the awarding body's own copy satisfies the awarding body's duty and puts nothing in front of the workers. The principal office fails for the same reason - the workers are not there. And posting is mandatory, so the last option states the opposite of the rule.

Labor Code §1720(a)(1) defines public works by the source of the money: construction, alteration, demolition, installation or repair done under contract and paid for in whole or in part out of public funds. A homeowner's own remodel involves no public money. Cost alone decides nothing, so the $25,000 commercial building is outside the definition unless public funds pay for it. Public land is not the test either: a privately funded complex on a city parcel is not a public work, while a privately owned building financed with a public subsidy can be.

The performance bond runs to the public agency and guarantees that the work will be completed according to the contract, with the surety arranging completion or paying damages on a default. The payment bond required by Civil Code §9550 before work starts protects subcontractors and suppliers instead, since they cannot lien public property. The CSLB licence bond is a condition of licensure and answers to injured parties generally, not to this contract. The bid bond guarantees only that the successful bidder will sign and post the other bonds.

Labor Code §1725.5 makes DIR public works registration an annual registration carrying an annual fee, and it must be current whenever the contractor bids, is listed, is awarded work, or performs. A one-time registration would defeat the annual fee. The CSLB licence runs on its own two-year cycle and the two renewals are unrelated. Registration attaches to the contractor rather than to the job, so it is not obtained again for each project.

Labor Code §1772 treats every worker employed on a public work as employed on it, and §1774 binds the contractor and every subcontractor to pay not less than the prevailing rate. Union membership decides nothing, because the rate is set by craft and county. The minimum wage is a floor for all employment and has no bearing on who is owed the prevailing rate. Confining the duty to the prime's own payroll is the error §1774 exists to close, since most public works labour is subcontracted.

Labor Code §1777.5(g) and 8 CCR §230.1 require at least one hour of apprentice work for every five hours of journeyman work in the craft, measured over the duration of the project rather than shift by shift, unless the approved standard for that craft sets another ratio. One-for-one doubles the duty. One in ten halves it. A single apprentice for the whole project is not a ratio at all: the requirement scales with the journeyman hours actually worked.

Labor Code §1811 sets eight hours as a day's work on public works and §1815 requires at least one and one-half times the basic hourly prevailing rate for hours worked beyond eight in a day or 40 in a week. Straight time for all hours is exactly the violation §1815 forbids, and it also triggers the §1813 forfeiture of $25 per worker per day. Waiting for the 40-hour week misses the daily trigger: the ninth hour on Monday is overtime even in a short week. Double time is not the §1815 rate.

Labor Code §1813 sets a forfeiture of $25 for each worker for each calendar day during which that worker is required or permitted to work more than the legal maximum hours without the required overtime pay. This penalty is in addition to paying the overtime owed.

A mechanics lien works only because the property can be sold at foreclosure to satisfy the debt; land held for public use cannot be sold that way, so the lien has nothing to attach to, and the legislature substituted the payment bond of Civil Code §9550 and the stop payment notice. Mechanics liens are alive and well on private work, so the first option is simply false. Subcontractors and suppliers, not just the direct contractor, hold lien rights on private jobs. And no dollar threshold bars liens: the $25,000 figure is the point at which a public works payment bond becomes compulsory.

A bid bond protects the public agency against a bidder that wins and then walks away: it guarantees the bidder will execute the contract and furnish the payment and performance bonds, and the surety covers the extra cost of going to the next bidder. Paying workers and suppliers is the payment bond's job under Civil Code §9550. Code compliance is enforced by inspection and by the performance bond's completion promise, not by the bid bond. The CSLB licence bond is a condition of licensure and is never displaced by a project bond.

Labor Code §1777.1 makes a debarred contractor, and any firm in which it holds an interest, ineligible to bid on, be awarded, or work as a subcontractor on public works for a stated term of one to three years; the term ends and eligibility returns. The CSLB licence is a separate matter and is not revoked by debarment, permanently or otherwise. Treble damages are not the prevailing wage remedy; §1775 adds a per-worker, per-day penalty plus the wage difference. California debarment reaches state and local public works, while federal exclusion is a separate federal process.

Labor Code §1776 requires certified payroll to be available for inspection, but copies provided to the public must have personal identifying information — such as each worker's name, address, and social security number — redacted to protect worker privacy.

Under Labor Code §1773.1 the prevailing wage is one package: the basic hourly rate plus employer payments for benefits. An employer that makes no qualifying contributions must pay the dollar value of those benefits to the worker as additional cash wages, so the total meets the determination. Ignoring the fringe portion underpays every hour and is a §1775 violation. Deferring it to the end of the job fails because the obligation attaches to each pay period, not to project closeout. And there is no exemption to report: coverage follows the classification and the work performed.

Workers' compensation is the answer, and it follows the employees, not the kind of project: Labor Code §3700 requires every employer to secure it, and B&P §7125(a) makes a current Certificate of Workers' Compensation Insurance, or a Certification of Self-Insurance from the Director of Industrial Relations, a condition precedent to the issuance, reinstatement, reactivation, renewal or continued maintenance of a licence. Until January 1, 2028, §7125(b) lets a licensee with no employees file an exemption statement instead — unless it holds a C-8, C-20, C-22, C-39 or D-49 classification, which must carry coverage regardless; from January 1, 2028 the SB 216 version, postponed by SB 1455 (Stats. 2024, ch. 485), requires coverage of every licensee except a §7029 joint venture with no employees. A public agency therefore cannot award to a contractor whose required coverage has lapsed, because §7125.2 suspends the licence itself. The three wrong answers are real policies that answer other risks: title insurance covers defects in ownership of land, builder's risk covers physical loss to the work under construction, and key-person life insurance pays the business on the death of an owner or manager. None of them pays an injured worker.

Labor Code §1777.7(a) sets a civil penalty of up to $100 for each full calendar day of noncompliance, up to $300 a day for a knowing second violation within three years, and §1777.1(d)(1) lets the Labor Commissioner deny the right to bid or perform for up to one year, or up to three on a repeat. The contract price is not forfeited; the awarding body withholds only assessed amounts. This is a civil scheme, not a criminal one. And the ratio is mandatory: §1777.5 requires the dispatch request and the ratio, with relief only through the approved-programme procedures.

Civil Code §9356 sets two windows and only two: 30 days after a notice of completion, acceptance or cessation is recorded, or, if none is recorded, 90 days after completion or cessation. Recording such a notice shortens the period; it never leaves the 90-day branch in place, which is why the second option is the trap. Waiting for formal acceptance can push the claimant past the deadline, and acceptance is itself one of the events that starts the 30-day clock. There is no open-ended right: once the window closes the public entity has no duty to withhold, and §9558 separately cuts off suit on the payment bond six months after the stop-notice period ends.

Civil Code §9554(a) requires the payment bond to be executed by an admitted surety insurer, meaning a company the Insurance Commissioner has licensed to transact surety business in this state, so the agency can verify the guarantor's solvency. A bank may issue a letter of credit, but that is not a bond and does not satisfy §9554. An insurance agent sells the bond and does not stand behind it; personal liability of the agent is not security the statute recognises. And the awarding body is the party the bond protects, so it cannot also be the guarantor.

Labor Code §1773 has the Director determine rates by craft and locality, and the worker must be paid the determination in effect when the work is actually performed, which is why a determination with a later expiration date can raise the rate mid-project. The bid date matters for pricing the job but does not freeze the wage owed. Rates are local by design, so a rate published for another county is irrelevant. And an agency's budget figure binds nobody: the determination, not the estimate, sets the obligation.

Labor Code §1773.3 requires the awarding body to file a separate notice (commonly the PWC-100) with the DIR within 5 days of awarding any public works contract, providing the project identification number used for certified payroll reporting.

Labor Code §1813 imposes a $25 penalty per worker for each calendar day during which the worker was required or permitted to work more than the legal hours without paying the required overtime rate on public works.

Labor Code §1777.7 authorizes debarment from bidding on or being awarded public works contracts for up to 3 years for a knowing second violation of apprenticeship standards within a 3-year period, in addition to civil penalties.

Under Civil Code §9356 and §9558, a claimant other than the direct contractor must serve a stop payment notice within 30 days after recording of a notice of completion, acceptance, or cessation on a public work; if no such notice is recorded, the deadline extends to 90 days after actual completion or cessation.

Labor Code §1720(a)(1) makes public funding the test: prevailing wage attaches to work done under contract and paid for in whole or in part out of public funds. A privately owned strip mall paid for entirely with private money is not a public work, so the §1771 threshold never comes into play. The $1,000 figure only marks where prevailing wage begins on work that is already public, and it does not convert a private job. No statute imposes prevailing wage on all California construction. A building permit is a code-enforcement act and spends no public money on the project.

Under Labor Code §1773, the Director of Industrial Relations determines per-craft, per-county prevailing wage rates and publishes general determinations on a semi-annual schedule (typically February 22 and August 22 each year), with special determinations as needed.

Labor Code §1771.4(a)(3) requires each contractor and subcontractor on a monitored project to furnish the §1776 records directly to the Labor Commissioner, in an electronic format in the manner prescribed on the department's website, at least once every 30 days while work continues and once more within 30 days of the last day worked. Certified mail reaches the right office in the wrong form. Paper to the awarding body is the common error: the awarding body still receives records on request under §1776(b), but that does not satisfy the §1771.4 duty. Fax is not a prescribed format at all.

Labor Code §1726 and §1727 make the awarding body withhold from progress or final payments the wages, penalties and forfeitures the Labor Commissioner has assessed, and hold them until the assessment is resolved, so the money stays available to the underpaid workers. Cancelling the contract is a remedy for breach and is governed by the contract's own default and notice provisions, not by a wage audit. Prevailing wage enforcement is civil, so a criminal referral is not the ordinary route. And the awarding body is not a bystander: withholding is its own statutory duty once it is notified.

Labor Code §1735 forbids discrimination on public works on the basis of race, religious creed, colour, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, medical condition, marital status, sex, age or sexual orientation, and imposes a forfeiture for each offence on top of any other remedy the worker may have. Private hiring discretion is no defence, because the contractor took public money. Training is a settlement term a party may agree to, not the statutory consequence. And retention release is governed by Public Contract Code §7107, which has nothing to do with discrimination.

Labor Code §1771.4(a)(2) requires the awarding body, or the prime contractor at its direction, to post job-site notices as prescribed by regulation, and 8 CCR §16451(d) sets out the DIR notice covering the prevailing wage requirement, the duty to keep certified payroll, and where a worker can complain. Cal/OSHA posters are separately required and do not discharge this duty. A licence number belongs on the contractor's vehicles and contracts under B&P §7030.5, not on this notice. The requirement is current, not repealed, and is one of the conditions of DIR monitoring.

Civil Code §9550 requires the direct contractor on a public works contract over $25,000 to give a payment bond before starting, and it exists for exactly this claimant: a supplier who dealt with a subcontractor and cannot lien public property. The claim must be made and suit filed within the §9558 window, which closes six months after the stop-notice period ends. A lien on the school or city building (a) is void. The supplier has no contract with the awarding body, so a direct breach claim (b) fails for want of privity. And waiting for retention (c) is the trap: retention released under Public Contract Code §7107 goes to the prime contractor, not to a supplier two tiers down, so the wait runs the §9558 clock out on the only remedy that would have worked.

The §1777.5 ratio requires at least 1 hour of apprentice work for every 5 hours of journeyman work. With 200 journeyman hours, the contractor must employ apprentices for at least 200 ÷ 5 = 40 hours, drawing from a state-approved apprenticeship program.

Labor Code §1771.4(a)(3) makes each contractor and subcontractor on a monitored project furnish the §1776 records directly to the Labor Commissioner, electronically, in the manner prescribed on the department's website, at least every 30 days while work continues. Sending them only to the awarding body is the common error: that body still receives records on request under §1776(b), but that does not discharge the §1771.4 duty. The county recorder takes recorded notices, never payroll. Building officials check code compliance, not wages.

Under Labor Code §1777.5 and 8 CCR §230(a), the contractor gives written notice of the contract award on a DAS-140 to the apprenticeship committee of each craft in the area of the site, within 10 days of the award and before work starts. The DAS-1 is the apprentice's own registration agreement, not a contract-award notice. The PWC-100 is the awarding body's filing with the DIR under §1773.3, not the contractor's. There is no CSLB form in this chain at all; apprenticeship is administered by the Division of Apprenticeship Standards.

8 CCR §230.1(a) requires the contractor to request dispatch of apprentices from the applicable committee on a DAS-142 at least 72 hours, excluding weekends and holidays, before apprentices are needed on the job; a committee that then fails to dispatch leaves the contractor covered by its documented request. No statute imposes a double journeyman wage for an unfilled slot. Waivers under §1777.5 come from the Division of Apprenticeship Standards, not the CSLB Registrar. And paying anyone the apprentice rate who is not a registered apprentice is itself a prevailing wage violation.

Labor Code §1771.4(a)(4) fixes the period at three years after completion of the work, and §1174(d) requires payroll records generally to be kept at least three years, so the two rules agree. The shorter periods would let records disappear while an assessment or a §1741 review is still live. Tying retention of the records to release of the retention money confuses two different things that share a word: retention proceeds are governed by Public Contract Code §7107 and are usually released within 60 days of completion, long before the record-keeping duty ends.

Labor Code §1771.5(a) lets an awarding body skip prevailing wage only if the Director has approved it to run a labor compliance program, and then only on construction of $25,000 or less, or alteration, demolition, repair or maintenance of $15,000 or less. The $1,000 line is §1771's general floor: below it no prevailing wage is owed at all, so it is not an exemption the agency elects. The $50,000 and $100,000 figures appear nowhere in the statute, and small-business status waives nothing.

Labor Code §1771 establishes the baseline rule that prevailing wages must be paid on all public works projects of more than $1,000. The higher $25,000/$15,000 thresholds in option D apply only to awarding bodies that have adopted an approved labor compliance program under §1771.5; without such a program, the $1,000 default of §1771 applies. The $500 and $5,000 figures are not statutory thresholds. This $1,000 floor is one of the most heavily tested numbers on the Business & Law exam.

Labor Code §1775(a) lets the Labor Commissioner assess up to $200 for each worker for each calendar day of underpayment, on top of the wage difference owed to the worker, with the amount set by the gravity of the offence and the contractor's history. A percentage of the contract price is not in §1775 and would make the penalty independent of how many workers were shortchanged. Treble damages belong to other wage statutes, not to this one. The $50 rate with a $5,000 project cap borrows the shape of the §1771.4 records penalty and applies it to the wrong violation.

Public Contract Code §7107(c) requires the public entity to release retention within 60 days after the date of completion, and §7107(f) charges 2 percent per month on any amount improperly withheld, in lieu of other interest, plus attorney's fees to the prevailing party in a collection action. The 90- and 120-day answers exceed the statutory window, and the penalty for delay is not optional. The 30-day figure borrows from progress-payment timing; §7107(d) does give the prime seven days to pass the retention down to its subs, which is a different clock.

Public Contract Code §4104(a)(1) requires the prime to set out in its bid the name, place of business, California licence number, DIR registration number and portion of work of each subcontractor whose work exceeds one-half of 1 percent of the prime's total bid. Street and highway work has its own variant — one-half of 1 percent or $10,000, whichever is greater — which is where the $10,000 in another option comes from, but the percentage there is still one-half of 1 percent, not 5 percent. The $25,000 and 10 percent figures are not in the statute; listing wrongly can cost the contract under §4110.

Public Contract Code §4107(a) permits substitution only on a listed ground — the sub refuses to execute the subcontract, becomes insolvent, fails to perform, is not properly licensed, and so on — and only after the awarding body gives the listed subcontractor written notice and at least five working days to object and request a hearing. A lower price from a replacement is bid shopping, which the Act exists to stop, and notice alone does not authorise it. The listed sub's agreement is not required when a ground exists, and a payment for stepping aside is not one of the grounds. Signing day changes nothing: listing binds from bid opening.

Labor Code §1777.5(g) and 8 CCR §230.1 require at least one hour of apprentice work for every five hours of journeyman work in the craft, computed over the duration of the project rather than shift by shift, unless the approved standard for that craft sets a different ratio. One-for-one on every shift both inflates the ratio and applies the wrong measuring period. Two apprentices per journeyman inverts the relationship entirely. And the ratio is not the prime's to choose: missing it without a documented DAS-142 dispatch request draws §1777.7 penalties and possible debarment.