The Joint Legislative Committee had to vet approximately 3,000 total bills to extract the relevant ones to our profession. Tuesday, February 13 marked the date of “Bill crossover” in the General Assembly. This is the day when bills must pass one house or the other or die for the session. As such, the “ACTIVE” list has been significantly reduced and many of those bills are “DEAD” for the session.
KEY VICTORIES
- SB 188 – Provides that for competitive negotiation of professional services, a public body may conduct negotiations simultaneously with the top two ranked offerors.
We successfully got architectural and engineering services removed from the bill.
ACTIVE
- HB 97 – Virginia Public Procurement Act; methods of procurement, single or term contracts
This bill allows for single or term contracts for professional services without requiring competitive negotiation, provided the aggregate or the sum of all phases is not expected to exceed $80,000. This change increased the limit in current law by $20,000.
MONITOR
- SB 318 – Small Business and Supplier Diversity, Department of; implementation of certification programs
This bill would change the definition of small business, beginning July 1, 2019, to meet the small business size established by the regulations of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
There were a number of bills that were proposed that attempted to codify Governor Terry McAuliffe’s Executive Order 20 (EO-20). EO-20 sets a 42% goal for participation by Small, Women and Minority Businesses (SWaM) in public contracts. With the potential change coming regarding the definition of “small” in Virginia, public entities may face increasing challenges in attempting to meet this goal for the procurement of architecture and engineering services. In meeting these goals, it is of paramount importance that the most qualified firms are selected. These two goals are not mutually exclusive. As such, we have requested a meeting with the Governor to discuss how we can work collaboratively to further those opportunities.
For a more detailed analysis of bills we are actively engaged with, bills we are monitoring, or to see bills that we were interested in but have died in session, click here.