SCA Conformance: When an Occupation Is Not on the Wage Determination

David Gul · Last updated November 3, 2026

ExcelGurus is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. General Services Administration or any other federal agency. This guide describes the regulations, clauses and decisions it cites as read on November 3, 2026; they change, so check them, the clauses in your own contract and its current wage determination before you rely on it. It is not legal advice.

If work on an SCA contract is not performed by any occupation on the wage determination, you classify it by its relationship to the listed occupations, start the conformance before the work begins, and submit Standard Form 1444 to the contracting officer no later than 30 days after that class of employee first performs contract work. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division then approves, modifies or disapproves the proposed rate, and the rate and fringe benefits it finally sets are owed from the first day of that work, not from the day of its decision. The duties decide the classification, not the job title, and a conformance cannot create a level below the entry level, a trainee class or a helper in the skilled maintenance trades. EG SCA Wage Pack (52.222-43), an Excel workbook from ExcelGurus, records an occupation that is not on the wage determination as a conformance request and shows the date the request is due.

When you need a conformance

The Department of Labor describes a conformance as the process used to add classes to a contract after it has been awarded. FAR 52.222-41(c)(2)(i) requires one for any class of service employee to be employed on the contract whose work “is not performed by any classification listed in the wage determination”. The test is the work, not the name: 29 CFR 4.152(b) says the duties an employee actually performs govern the classification and the rate, and the conformance note on every standard wage determination says that “it is not the job title, but the required tasks” that decide whether a class is covered.

So check the listed occupations first, against their duties in the SCA Directory of Occupations, Fifth Edition. A conformance is not a way around a listed rate, and the Department of Labor’s conformance guide says that occupations listed on the wage determination cannot be conformed. The reverse mistake is costly too: GAO reported Wage and Hour cases in which help desk workers were paid as Data Entry Operators instead of Personal Computer Support Technicians. On wage determination 2015-4281, Revision 39, that is $19.11 an hour against $40.11. How to read an SCA wage determination walks through the occupation table.

Three situations call for a conformance most often:

• Work no listed occupation covers, compared duty by duty with the Directory.
• Nonexempt computer employees where the wage determination leaves the computer programmer or systems analyst lines without a rate. Footnote 1 on standard wage determinations says that in such cases “a conformance will be necessary if there are nonexempt employees in these job families”.
• Several wage determinations in one contract. The wage determination’s own note says to prepare a separate SF-1444 for each wage determination to which a class is to be conformed.

The Wage and Hour Division does not conform a position that is vacant, its conformance guide says, so the request follows the actual work.

The steps and the deadlines

The clause, FAR 22.1019 and the conformance process printed on every standard wage determination set the same sequence:

The request goes to the contracting officer, not to the Department of Labor: the agency signs it and sends it on. The Department of Labor’s conformance guide adds that a proposed rate worked out for a bid goes to the contracting officer only, and that the agency submits the request to the Wage and Hour Division only after award.

How the proposed rate is set

The rate must bear “a reasonable relationship (i.e., appropriate level of skill comparison)” to the listed classifications. 29 CFR 4.6(b)(2)(iv)(A) says that cannot be reduced to a single formula and names the usual tools: pay grade rankings by point schemes or other job factors, the way the federal pay systems (the Federal Wage Board system and the General Schedule) rate similar jobs, and other wage determinations in the same locality. Its principle is that pay keeps the relationship that skill and duties give between classes.

The Department of Labor’s conformance guide turns that into a method built on the Federal grade equivalency (FGE) the SF-1444 asks for. Find the broad group on the wage determination where the new occupation fits, such as Administrative Support and Clerical, and the listed occupations in that group with the same FGE. One match gives the rate; several are averaged; with none, the rate of the nearest grade is stepped up or down by the guide’s percentage between grades. Whatever the method, the SF-1444 states the rationale, and the fringe benefits are the ones the wage determination already sets. No rate may fall below the Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage (4.6(b)(2)(iv)(C)).

Paying while the request is pending

The rules do not make the work wait for a decision. The request is due up to 30 days after the class first works, and the Wage and Hour Division has 30 days from receipt, or longer if it says so. What protects the employees is paragraph (c)(2)(v) of the clause: the rate and fringe benefits finally determined “shall be paid to all employees performing in the classification from the first day on which contract work is performed by them in the classification”. Not paying them retroactively to that day is a violation of the statute and the contract.

In practice that means the rate you pay while the request is pending is provisional. If the Wage and Hour Division sets a higher rate, the difference is owed for every hour back to the first day, with the fringe benefits that go with it. Keep the hours of the conformed class separate from the start, so that back pay can be worked out exactly. And where nobody started the process, paragraph (c)(2)(vi) lets the Wage and Hour Division make its own determination on discovery, again retroactive to the first day of the work.

What cannot be conformed

FAR 22.1019(b) and 29 CFR 4.152(c)(1) rule out:

• A level below the lowest one listed. Where the wage determination lists a family of levels, such as Accounting Clerk I to III, the lowest is the entry level, and a lower level cannot be created by conformance.
• Trainees. Trainee classifications may not be conformed.
• Helpers in the skilled maintenance trades, such as electricians, machinists and automobile mechanics. They may be used if the wage determination lists them, but may not be conformed.
• Splitting or combining listed classes. A conformance may not artificially split, subdivide or combine classifications on the wage determination.

The same paragraph keeps the door open the other way: conforming procedures may be used if the work an employee performs is not within the scope of any listed classification, “regardless of job title”.

At an option: indexing and the price adjustment

When an option is exercised and a new wage determination comes in, a conformed class does not need a new SF-1444. Under 29 CFR 4.6(b)(2)(iv)(B) and the same paragraph of the clause, the conformed rate and fringe benefits may be indexed by the average (mean) percentage change between the old and new wage determination rates for all the listed classes used on the contract. The contractor advises the contracting officer; when the indexing is done before the class works in the new period, the rest of the SF-1444 process need not be followed. The other route is a new conformance request.

The Department of Labor’s presentation gives the arithmetic. A Secretary I goes from $10.00 to $10.80 (8%) and an Accounting Clerk I from $10.50 to $10.71 (2%); the average is 5%, which is applied to the conformed rate. A conformed rate of $25.00 would become $26.25.

The new conformed rate also enters a FAR 52.222-43 price adjustment. The U.S. Air Force’s Price Adjustment Guide prices a conformed class the same way, by the unweighted average percentage change of the wage determination classes actually used, applied to the conformed rate. The 52.222-43 price adjustment guide covers the rest of the request.

Records to keep

The list of wages and fringe benefits for classes not on the wage determination is one of the records 29 CFR 4.6(g)(1)(v) requires, and a copy of the conformance report counts as that list. Like the rest of the SCA payroll records, it is kept for 3 years from the completion of the work. Keep the SF-1444 as sent, the contracting officer’s transmittal, the Wage and Hour Division’s decision, proof that each affected employee received a copy or that it was posted, and the payroll that shows any retroactive payment.

Sources

Primary sources, as read on November 3, 2026. They change; the current versions are the ones that count.

• FAR 52.222-41, Service Contract Labor Standards (www.acquisition.gov), FAC 2026-01, paragraph (c)(2)
• FAR 22.1019, Additional classes of service employees (www.acquisition.gov)
• 29 CFR Part 4 (www.ecfr.gov), sections 4.6(b)(2), 4.6(g)(1)(v), 4.152(b) and 4.152(c)(1)
• Wage determination 2015-4281, Revision 39 (August 22, 2026) (sam.gov), the conformance process, footnote 1 and the rates quoted
• U.S. Department of Labor, SCA WDs and Conformances (PDF) (www.dol.gov), the conformance slides and the indexing example
• U.S. Department of Labor, Service Contract Act Conformance Guide (PDF) (www.dol.gov), an older guide still linked from the Wage and Hour Division’s guidance page: completing SF-1444, the FGE method
• SCA Directory of Occupations, Fifth Edition (PDF) (www.dol.gov)
• GAO-21-11, Federal Contracting: Actions Needed to Improve Department of Labor’s Enforcement of Service Worker Wage Protections (www.gao.gov), the help desk example; read October 30, 2026
• U.S. Air Force, FLSA, SCLS and EO 14026 Price Adjustment Guide, September 2022 (PDF) (www.af.mil), section 12.2, conformed classes; read October 30, 2026

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