Panel backs bill letting SCDOT use its contracting for rest areas, planning

The Transportation Subcommittee on Education and Public Works on a favorable 6-0 vote recommended H.3801, a bill that would allow the South Carolina Department of Transportation to use its project-specific procurement authority for vertical structures in highway rights of way and for transportation planning beyond individual road or bridge projects.

SCDOT representatives said the change is intended to streamline procurements and make the agency eligible for roughly $4,000,000 a year in Federal Highway Administration planning funds that the agency cannot access under the general state procurement rules. "This bill is about efficiency, streamlining, and applying more common sense to some of our procurements," SCDOT State Government Affairs Director Ted Creech told the subcommittee.

The bill would extend SCDOT's existing road-and-bridge procurement authority to cover vertical buildings and structures on highway rights of way — examples given in testimony included rest areas, mass-transit facilities and bus stops. Creech said SCDOT currently uses its procurement process for road and bridge projects but must use the general state procurement procedure for structures and for certain transportation planning work not tied to a specific road project.

Creech said that limitation prevents the department from using some federal transportation planning funds. "The general state procurement has limitations on the kinds or the amounts of professional services that prevent us from utilizing or accessing some $4,000,000 in federal transportation planning funding that we're eligible for each year from Federal Highway Administration," he said.

Committee members asked how the change would affect coordination with local development and whether the bill would address congestion created by growth. Creech said the bill focuses on procurement authority and does not directly change permitting or development-review processes, which currently rely on SCDOT's encroachment-permit process and traffic-impact analyses. He said the department and local governments sometimes coordinate on growth-related congestion but that permitting provisions remain the short-term mechanism to address developer-driven road impacts.

After brief discussion, a motion to give H.3801 a favorable report as is received a second. The subcommittee recorded ayes from Representatives Philip Bowers, Cambro Garvin, Lee Gilreath, Kilmartin, Tim McGinnis and Chair David Vaughn; no nays were recorded and the chair announced the bill received a favorable report by a vote of 6 to 0.

If enacted, the change would allow SCDOT to include planning and construction services for certain structures and broader transportation planning under the agency's procurement process; the bill text and final implementation details were not discussed on the record at the subcommittee meeting.