2023 Public Body Procurement Workgroup

The 2023 General Assembly session charged the Public Body Procurement Workgroup with reviewing and reporting on the bills described below. If you wish to provide the workgroup members with information or literature related to the 2023 study topics, please email pwg@dgs.virginia.gov.

SB 272 (2022), patroned by Senator Hashmi. The Workgroup has been asked to “study SB 272 and review ways to continue to reduce carbon emissions in concrete and cement, without sacrificing the integrity of the product and cost competitiveness.”

SB 912 (2023), patroned by Senator Ruff, which would prohibit public bodies, in the case of proposals for information technology, from requiring offerors to state in their proposal any exceptions they may have to any of the contractual terms and conditions, including any liability conditions, contained in the Request for Proposal. The bill would require such offerors to instead state any such exceptions in writing at the beginning of negotiations, and require public bodies to consider such exceptions during negotiation.

SB 954 (2023), patroned by Senator Petersen, which appears intended to (i) narrow the definition of “complex project” such that projects would be required to meet stricter criteria in order to be deemed complex and therefore appropriate for utilizing construction management and design-build (CM/DB) procurement methods; (ii) prohibit the use of CM/DB procurement methods for projects totaling less than $5 million; and (iii) for projects totaling between $5 million and $125 million, require public bodies to (a) obtain approval from the Secretary of Administration to use CM/DB procurement methods and (b) conduct a two-step procurement process in which the public body must first award a contract for preconstruction services, and, upon completion of such contract, award a second contract for construction services using competitive sealed bidding.

SB 1115 (2023), patroned by Senator DeSteph, which would (i) require state public bodies to decrease the price of any bid offered by (a) seven percent for a “Virginia end product” and (b) two percent for a “U.S. end product”; (ii) require that when the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, after price preferences have been taken into account, who is a resident of Virginia is within five percent or $10,000, whichever is less, of the lowest responsive and responsible bidder who is a resident of another state, the bidder who is a resident of Virginia be given the opportunity to match the price of the bidder who is a resident of another state; and (iii) provide that if a state public body receives three or more bids from manufacturers that use materials or product components made in Virginia or in the U.S., such public body may only select from among such bids.