Agency of Transportation seeks to raise bonding threshold to match State Bulletin
Loading...
Summary
Agency of Transportation staff told the House Transportation Committee the bill’s Section 4 would raise the simplified bid/bonding threshold from $100,000 to $250,000 to align with State Bulletin 3.5 and add explicit emergency waiver language to speed contractor deployment during crises.
Doreen Carminetti, chief of contract administration for the Agency of Transportation, told the House Transportation Committee on Feb. 5 that Section 4 of the transportation bill proposes a technical edit to raise the bonding threshold from $100,000 to $250,000 to match updates in State Bulletin 3.5.
Carminetti said the change is largely administrative: State Bulletin 3.5, administered by the Agency of Administration, recently increased the simplified bid threshold to $250,000 and AOT recommends aligning statutory bonding language to avoid inconsistency. "We are initially proposing just a technical edit to align the bonding threshold with the updates made to State Bulletin 3.5," she said.
The draft also adds explicit language allowing bonds to be waived during immediate emergencies so vetted contractors already under contract can be sent to preserve life, safety and state property; permanent work would revert to normal procurement after the direct threat is eliminated. Carminetti said that in emergencies AOT typically issues a notice to proceed and may include a bond waiver on that notice.
Committee members asked why the threshold was set at $250,000 rather than a higher figure or an inflation‑adjusted formula. Carminetti said the agency selected $250,000 to match Bulletin 3.5 and noted higher construction costs have made the $100,000 threshold increasingly outdated. On frequency, AOT staff estimated the higher threshold would add "about a dozen" contracts in a typical year; during the 2023 flooding event staff said roughly 25 task orders exceeded $100,000 and an additional 12–15 would have fallen between $100,000 and $250,000.
Green Harper, identified as a lead director in AOT, told the committee his review found it is rare for the agency to call a bond for noncompliance. "It's been at least 20, if not 30, years that anybody could recall ever us pulling a bond," he said, noting bond calls are uncommon.
Members also raised a drafting question from house counsel about whether to list "payment of unemployment insurance contributions" alongside state and municipal taxes in contractor compliance language; the committee asked AOT counsel to confirm whether the clause should enumerate items or use broader wording such as "all applicable taxes."
AOT said it had reached out to the Associated General Contractors and major highway contractors and that those stakeholders were supportive of the change. Agency staff also said AOA risk management reviewed the proposal and was supportive. The committee moved on to other sections but indicated it would thumb up each section after confirming language and affected parties.
Next steps: the committee signaled it would review and vote/"thumb up" sections of the bill after staff confirm final language and stakeholder input.
