On Friday April 23rd, McKonly and Asbury, LLP with representatives from Murray Risk Management and Insurance and Reager and Adler, PC held the Spring Construction Conference at the Harrisburg/Hershey Sheraton. The day provided a number of educational sessions from tax and finance, insurance, bonding and legal updates for the construction industry.
Mr. Joseph Ritchey from Murray Risk Management and Insurance started the day with a general discussion on employment practice liability awareness and wage and hour claims information and analysis. Mr. Ritchey discussed United States Department of Labor statistics as it relates to collection of back wages, violations of overtime security regulations, child labor enforcement and Family and Medical Leave Act enforcement. Mr. Ritchey left the audience with a core policies and practices document that can be used and tailored to a construction companies use on ethics, equal employment opportunity, open door policies, health and safety, confidentiality and other core employment practices and policies.
Mr. Jason Skrinak from McKonly and Asbury, LLP provided a construction state and local tax update. Mr. Skrinak discussed a number of changes with state tax regulations as it pertains to capital stock and foreign franchise taxes and corporate net income tax. Mr. Skrinak also discussed the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s tax amnesty program and semi-monthly sales and use tax reporting requirements. Lastly, Mr. Skrinak discussed a number of new tax initiatives that the legislature is investigating as well as a general discussion on the current multi-state tax environment.
Mr. Tom Williams of Reager and Adler, PC. led two discussions on employment workplace classification and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Mr. Williams discussed the number of laws that pertain to workplace classification issues, the regulatory bodies involved, evidence to consider when classifying an employee in the workplace and factors used to determine whether a person is an employee. Mr. Williams also discussed ADR and its many intricacies. More specifically, Mr. Williams discussed the federal and state arbitration acts, arbitration procedures, appeal rights and mediation.
Mrs. Lydia Mantle of Murray Risk Management and Insurance discussed a number of emerging issues in surety bonding. Mrs. Mantle discussed the view of banks and surety companies in the current economic climate. Mrs. Mantle also discussed federal contracting opportunities from where to find them, how to qualify and how to get started on the bidding process.
The last presentation of the day was provided by McKonly and Asbury, LLP on fraud proofing your construction company. Mr. Sam BowerCraft and Mr. Mike Hoffner discussed the factors that cause one to carry out a fraud and how to prevent fraud through a number of different methods and techniques.
The seminar was closed out by a panel discussion from representatives from McKonly and Asbury, LLP, Reager and Adler, PC and Murray Risk Management and Insurance in which they discussed a number of topics that are impacting today’s construction community.
For more information please contact David B. Blain construction segment leader, at dblain@macpas.com.
Download a copy of the presentation