The OFCCP has quietly posted a second Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL) on their website. The list contains 1,000 “fresh” contractor establishments or functions that have been selected, but not yet scheduled for, a compliance evaluation.
True to their word in the OFCCP’s revised Scheduling Letter, they are now listing “University” as a distinct type of audit, and the list contains twelve lucky “winners.” The agency’s published methodology does not illuminate how they selected universities for audit, but the list is chock full of heavy-hitters, larger schools many with large endowments.
There are 36 functional AAP audits on the list. With fewer than 100 contractors currently holding valid FAAP agreements, it’s not surprising that most of those contractors each have 2-3 functions selected.
There are 30 Corporate Management Compliance Evaluations (CMCEs) listed. For those with a headquarters “campus,” we expect the OFCCP to treat those like a new “university” audit in which the entire campus could be in play.
The remaining 922 are good old-fashioned “establishment” reviews. Here, the OFCCP actually focused on contractors engaged in “low-wage industries” with the lowest weekly wages reported in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages survey from the fourth quarter of 2022.
They crossed that with data identifying non-construction contractors that received the most contracts under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.
Drilling down even farther, the OFCCP focused on NAICS codes for Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, Manufacturing, Retail Trade; Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services; Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services; Accommodation and Food Services; and Other Services (except Public Administration).
The agency further winnowed the list through its usual process of eliminating contracts valued at less than $50,000, expired contracts, etc., and concentrating on establishments with the highest employee headcounts.
Further, the OFCCP limited the CMCEs to five per region, limited the establishment reviews to no more than two for the same parent company in any district, limited FAAP reviews to six per region, two financial institutions per region, and two colleges or universities per region.
And they remind us all that publishing their methodology is voluntary, so thank you, OFCCP. The published methodology is important, as is the transparency behind it. And what this methodology shows us is that the OFCCP is pretty determined to make it hard for contractors to “game the system” and stay out of the OFCCP’s line of fire. And they are using lots of different federal data sources in creative ways to spread their particular brand of joy to more and different contractors.
If your organization is on the new CSAL, your audit will not actually begin until you receive a copy of the OFCCP’s brand-new, revised Scheduling Letter. That revised letter significantly expands the reports, data, and information the agency demands in a relatively tight 30-day window. So consider getting a jump on your audit prep and leave yourself as much time as possible to concentrate on your hiring and compensation data.
And if you have questions about this or any other OFCCP-related matter, feel free to drop us a line at BCGi@Biddle.com.
