The NC Senate and Local Government Committee last week approved an amended version of H857 that involves design-build and public-private partnerships of public work. The bill next is headed for the Senate Finance Committee. Carolinas AGC – and a broad-ranging group of organizations – is heavily involved in the legislation. CAGC is continuing to work to ensure that contractors – and not designers – would be able to continue to be the lead on public construction work.
The bill comes at a time when a dozen or so local design bills have been introduced this year, similar to previous years, with few parameters to allow for a level playing field for the construction industry to be able to do the work. In addition, legislation was introduced this year, as in past years, that so far has not been successful and could have allowed for Virginia-modeled legislation that would allow for unsolicited bidding, no new funding sources and limited transparency and bonding/lien protection on public work, a measure CAGC strongly opposes. Read More.