Alabama commission readies statewide public-works advertising site; $25 posting fee set

A state commission charged with public-works advertising previewed a new statewide website and set a timeline for a report to the legislature, saying the site will go live Oct. 1 and that a $25 fee will be charged for each advertisement.

Taylor, meeting host for the commission, opened the discussion by saying the group’s major tasks are launching the central website and preparing a report to the legislature on advertising under Title 39, due by the second week of the next legislative session.

The draft report will include a brief history of recent changes to public-works advertising, logistical issues and the commission’s recommended principles for future advertising, Taylor said. “The first part of the report, I think, would include sort of a brief history ... of what the recent changes to public works advertising have been,” Taylor said.

Mickey, staff with the Division of Construction Management (DCM), and State Business Systems (SBS) staff demonstrated the site, which will be hosted at alabamabuilds.gov. Eric Holt, a contract administrator with DCM, walked commissioners through the test site and described features contractors and awarding authorities will use.

“The title of the website is Alabama Builds,” Holt said during the demonstration. Holt showed three launch functions: view advertisements for bids, submit advertisements, and sign up for notices. He said the sign-up for notices will deliver a daily email, currently scheduled for 6 p.m., with a link to a spreadsheet of advertisements added in the previous 24 hours.

Holt described account workflows: a registrant provides name, title, address and email; the site sends an email verification and places the account “in the queue, for review” before the user can submit advertisements. Holt said the site will accept uploaded advertisement files in Adobe or Word formats to allow future checks for ADA compliance.

Mickey said the site team expects a short hiring delay but has hired a staffer who will start Oct. 1 and said other staff will serve as backups. “We expect to go live October 1 at 12:01AM,” Mickey said. He added that SPS (State Business Systems) configured redirects from outboundbuilds.org and outboundbuilds.net; outboundbuilds.com could not be obtained.

The commission confirmed a $25 fee per ad for the initial rollout. “We did settle on the $25 fee per ad,” Mickey said. Payments will be by credit card through an online portal; submitters will enter a payment confirmation number as part of the submission process.

Holt demonstrated search and filtering by awarding authority type (for example, state agency, public K–12, public university, county, municipal government), by county and municipality, and by bid due date. He said multi-county projects are supported and selecting multiple counties will populate the municipalities in those counties.

On completion notices, Grace asked whether posting a completion notice must be done by the awarding authority or could be posted to the statewide site. Jason (staff) read the statute language the commission had previously discussed: posting completion notices may be in “newspaper general circulation on a website maintained by the newspaper or ... on a website used by the awarding authority for publishing notices.” Jason said he did not see an issue with using the Alabama Builds site under that language.

Taylor said the commission will include an outline and early draft of the report for circulation; he proposed meeting dates to finalize material: Oct. 27 at 10 a.m., Dec. 1 and Jan. 5. The commission agreed to that schedule during the meeting.

Administrative business: the commission approved minutes from the prior meeting. A motion to approve the minutes was made and seconded and the chair called for the ayes; the minutes were approved as recorded in the meeting log.

The commission’s staff said they will use DCM’s existing email lists and associations to notify architects, engineers, contractors and awarding authorities statewide and asked meeting participants to help distribute the announcement when the site launches. Mickey said the commission expects to collect feedback during the initial weeks and make iterative updates to the site’s FAQ and help materials.

The commission did not take formal legislative action in this meeting beyond approving minutes and scheduling future meetings. The website demonstration and the deadlines for the report and launch were the substantive outcomes of the session.