Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed into law his administration’s bill modernizing Alaska’s public construction process. House Bill 160 changes the current construction procurement code by including the Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) methodology as an authorized form of awarding procurement contracts.
Mike Lessman, Legislative Liaison for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities explains HB 160 to the House Transportation Committee on April 15th:
“This legislative proposal is before you today because the department wants to be responsive to the needs of its contracting community. This legislation’s exclusive purpose is to grant the department authority to write regulations around a process, which already exists between the department and its contractors. House Bill 160 amends Alaska Statute 3630, the state’s procurement code, codifying the department’s current use of construction manager general contractor that’s CM/GC, constructing contracting method. The CM/GC contracting method provides for a two-phase contract in which the same contractor can provide construction related services during the both preconstruction and construction phases of a project. Although this procurement method is not a specific option under state procurement law, the department has been successfully using CM/GC contracting method. This contracting method has been used for public facilities, projects, federal aid highway projects, bridge projects, and new vessel construction projects in Alaska for approximately the past 15 years.
Gov. Dunleavy’s office says that this method is accepted as a worldwide industry standard for managing costs and delivering high quality results, but the state’s procurement code wasn’t updated to accept CM/GC as a default method of managing contracts. If the agencies wanted to use this method, an administrative review was required, which was eliminated with House Bill 160.
HB 160 was introduced and sponsored by the Dunleavy Administration at the start of the 2021 Legislative Session, and passed the Legislature unanimously.
