Contributed by Eddie Bernacchi, Politico Group
SACRAMENTO – Year after year construction contractors have watched counties perform an enormous amount of “new” road construction with maintenance crews, while circumventing competitive bidding laws by using what is commonly called the “Road Commissioner” authority. This outdated statute allows counties to self perform road construction projects, ignoring accounting procedures and contracting out requirements.
It has been a long standing goal of CIFAC to reform this archaic law which has been in existence since the 1950’s. Originally the law was designed to allow rural counties that were unable to get contractors to submit competitive bids in their area a method to get paving work completed.
Today it is used by counties to perform work on bridges, culverts and overlay projects. The real rub is that counties that have agreed to follow the procedures of the California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act (Act) are even using the “Road Commissioner “authority to circumvent the requirements of that Act.
This legislative session CIFAC set out to correct this issue and provide contractors more opportunities to bid these types of county projects. To achieve this goal CIFAC introduced legislation (AB 1409 – Perez) to clarify that counties signatory to the Act must follow the accounting and contracting out procedures of the Act in all cases.
To understand why this measure is so important a little background is needed. The California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act is a program created in 1983 which allows, among other benefits, local agencies to perform public project work up to $30,000 with its own work force if the agency elects to follow the cost accounting procedures set forth in the Cost Accounting Policies and Procedures Manual of the California Uniform Construction Cost Accounting Commission and the Act as enacted under Public Contracts Code Section 22000 through 22045 (hereafter abbreviated as PCC 22000-22045).
In addition to the increased force account limit, the Act provides for alternative bidding procedures when an agency performs public project work by contract as follows:
(a) Public projects of $30,000 or less may be performed by the public agencies own forces, by negotiated contract or by purchase order (PCC 22032(a)).
(b) Public projects of $125,000 or less may be let to contract by the informal procedures set forth in the Act (PCC 22032(b)).
(c) Public projects of more than $125,000 shall be let to contract by formal bidding procedures (PCC 22032(c)).
Every five years, the Commission considers whether there have been material changes in public construction costs and makes recommendations to the State Controller regarding adjustments to the bidding procedure monetary limits (PCC 22020).
Being subject to The California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act is a voluntary decision and the program is available to all local agencies, both general law and charter.
To become subject to the Act, the governing body of the agency must elect by resolution to become subject to the Act and file a copy of the resolution with the State Controller’s Office (PCC 22030). The goal of the Act is to ensure that all agencies that voluntarily choose to utilize the Act follow the accounting procedures within the Act.
AB 1409 will end confusion between sections of the California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act regarding whether an agency can utilize other aspects of the Public Contract Code while voluntarily being subject to the Act.
The bill would delete Section 22031 of the Public Contract Code within the California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act and in doing so; clarify that agencies that have voluntarily chosen to utilize the act must follow all of the procedures within the act.
Section 22030 of the Public Contract Code within the Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act states that “In the event of a conflict with any other provision of law relative to bidding procedures, this article shall apply to any public agency which has adopted a resolution and so notified the Controller.” This Language is in conflict with Public Contract Code Section 22031 within the Act which states that “nothing in this article shall prohibit a board of supervisors or a county road commissioner from utilizing, as an alternative to the procedures set forth in this article, the procedures set forth in Article 25 (commencing with Section 20390) of Chapter 1.”
The CIFAC sponsored measure will provide clarity within the provisions of the California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act, while allowing counties who wish to utilize other aspects of the Public Contract Code to make that choice. Under the provisions of AB 1409, counties who wish to utilize Public Contract Code Section 20390 will be able to do so while counties who choose to utilize the California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act will be held to the accounting and bidding procedures of the Act.
The bill allows counties to make their own decisions in regards to how they want to perform highway and road construction projects while protecting the integrity of the California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act and ensuring that contractors have the opportunity to bid on larger new county road construction projects.
AB 1409 has moved out of the State Assembly and is set for hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee when the legislature reconvenes in January of 2010.
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