In Lantry v. State of New York, 6 NY3d 49 (2005), the Court of Appeals outlined the procedure whereby the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor sets the prevailing rate for workers on State and local public works projects (except in New York City, where it is the responsibility of the Comptroller). First, the Commissioner classifies the work to a specific trade or occupation. Second, the Commissioner (here, Comptroller) "must ascertain the prevailing rate for that trade or occupation in the relevant locality." 6 NY3d at 54. The decision notes that in the early 1980s, the prevailing wage rate was fixed by performing industry surveys of the actual wages received by trade workers in each of the state's localities. Because this was a cumbersome and costly process, and because the result was virtually always that the wages would equate to the collectively bargained wages, Labor Law 220 was amended in 1983 to authorize the Commissioner to dispense with the survey process, and instead adopt the rate paid in a locality by referring to the CBAs between private sector employers and labor unions, so long as the agreement covered at least 30% of the workers in that particular trade or occupation. Id.