MINUTES OF THE meeting
of the
ASSEMBLY Committee on Government Affairs
Subcommittee
Seventy-Second Session
April 10, 2003
The Committee on Government Affairs Subcommittee was reconvened at 7:13 a.m., on Thursday, April 10, 2003. Chairman Tom Collins presided in Room 3143 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
Note: These minutes are compiled in the modified verbatim style. Bracketed material indicates language used to clarify and further describe testimony. Actions of the Committee are presented in the traditional legislative style.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mr. Tom Collins, Chairman
Mr. Pete Goicoechea
Mr. Mark Manendo
COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:
None
GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:
None
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Susan Scholley, Committee Policy Analyst
Eileen O'Grady, Committee Counsel
Pat Hughey, Committee Secretary
OTHERS PRESENT:
Jeanette Belz, Associated General Contractors, Nevada Chapter
Jim Keenan, Nevada Public Purchasing Study Commission and Clark County School District
Randy Robison, Associated Builders and Contractors
Steve Holloway, Executive Vice President, Associated General Contractors, Las Vegas Chapter
Derek Morse, Deputy Executive Director, Washoe County Regional Transportation Commission
Lori Ashton, Representative, Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters
Ted Olivas, Assistant Director, Clark County Finance Department
Steve Muchicko, Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, Northern Nevada
Assembly Bill 295: Revises provisions governing criteria for determining qualification of bidders on public works of local governments. (BDR 28‑747)
Assembly Bill 540: Revises provisions governing bidders and subcontractors on contracts for public works. (BDR 28-361)
Chairman Collins:
[Reconvened the Assembly Government Affairs Subcommittee meeting on A.B. 295 and A.B. 540 at 7:12 a.m.] Madam Secretary, will you call the roll? [Roll taken.]
Just to review where we’re at and why we’re here, the Chairman of the Assembly Government Affairs Committee assigned this Subcommittee to find, between Assembly Bill 295 and Assembly Bill 540, what is workable and agreeable by most parties, and to find consensus if we can, and I believe the intent is to only process one bill out of these two.
I’ve got in front of me a proposed amendment to Assembly Bill 295, dated April 9, 2003, [Exhibit C], from Clark County Finance; Nevada Chairman of the Nevada Public Purchasing Study Commission; Executive Vice President, Associated General Contractors, Las Vegas; Associated General Contractors, Nevada Chapter; Construction Manager, City of Henderson; Southern Nevada Water Authority and Las Vegas Valley Water District; Public Works Director, City of North Las Vegas; and Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council. If whomever they have chosen to represent that amendment [Exhibit C] would come forward.
Jeanette Belz, Associated General Contractors, Nevada Chapter:
[Introduced herself.] You are correct in noting on the amendment that was passed out [Exhibit C] that we did have a rather large group of people that has been working over the past several days since we last met, trying to come to some kind of consensus.
The proposed amendments [Exhibit C] would be to A.B. 295. One would delete in Section 1, line 5, the term “by ordinance,” because it came to our attention that not all public bodies adopt by ordinance.
The second amendment was to the bill as a whole, to add another section. This was an amendment that was originally proposed by Lori Ashton of the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, but we wanted to refine the language a little bit. We rewrote it and submitted it to Lori prior to the last meeting, and she was in favor of the way it was rewritten at that time. I don’t mean to speak for her today.
Chairman Collins:
That’s the language you’ve provided here in Exhibit C addressing page 3, Section 1, number 11, “Whether, in the 5 years—“
Jeanette Belz:
That is correct, Mr. Chairman. It has to do with failure to perform.
Jim Keenan, Nevada Public Purchasing Study Commission and Clark County School District:
Jim Keenan, representing the Nevada Public Purchasing Study Commission and, specifically for this amendment [Exhibit C], the Clark County School District has authorized me to speak for them. We support this amendment [Exhibit C] that was just presented to you unanimously.
Randy Robison, Associated Builders and Contractors:
[Introduced himself.] We also support A.B. 295 with the amendments [Exhibit C] that have been submitted. I have one additional minor amendment [Exhibit D] to submit, that the folks listed on the page [Exhibit C] have agreed to. I’d like to submit that to the secretary. Let me clarify for the record that the Associated Builders and Contractors has authorized representatives to speak for the Associated Builders and Contractors, in the effort to avoid any unintended misrepresentation of the any of the positions of the Associated Builders and Contractors. That’s why we’re submitting this amendment [Exhibit D] this morning.
Chairman Collins:
Could you say that again?
Randy Robison:
The Associated Builders and Contractors and its authorized representatives are the only ones that are given the liberty to speak on behalf of the Associated Builders and Contractors, in an attempt to avoid any unintended misrepresentation to this body or any other body.
Chairman Collins:
You’re wanting to change on page 3, Section 1, subsection 10, line 7, of A.B. 295, where it says, “Whether any complaints—” Am I in the right place there? Do you have a copy of the bill?
Randy Robison:
Yes. On page 3, Section 1, subsection 10, line 7, of A.B. 295. At the first hearing on this bill, we expressed concern with the language, “filed with and substantiated by.” We were concerned that the word “substantiated” was not defined well enough, and we have been working on language to clarify what that means. The language that we propose to use [Exhibit D], beginning with, “filed with and substantiated by evidence of disciplinary action or adjudication by the Nevada State Contractors Board,” et cetera.
Chairman Collins:
After “substantiated,” you’re adding “by evidence of disciplinary action or adjudication?” [Randy Robison stated that Chairman Collins was correct.] So, evidence of a hearing, a discipline procedure, or an action taken or a hearing held by the Nevada State Contractors Board from their minutes and results of their meetings? [Randy Robison again indicated that Chairman Collins was correct.] That’s the general intent. Does the Subcommittee see where that would be added? Ms. Belz, all of you have signed on to that?
Jeanette Belz:
Yes, we have.
Jim Keenan:
Yes, sir, we support it as well.
Chairman Collins:
Do you have any other group having any other amendments or proposals or changes to A.B. 295, and do you agree with your wishes to have A.B. 540 linger?
Jeanette Belz:
Yes.
Jim Keenan:
Yes, sir.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
Just one question on page 2, subsection 6, line 38. It says, “Whether the applicant has been disqualified from being awarded a contract pursuant to NRS [Nevada Revised Statutes] 338.017 or 338.1387.” Would that be a lifetime exclusion at that point? The way I read that, if you’ve ever been disqualified, you’d never be able to apply again.
Jim Keenan:
As I recall, NRS 338.017 pertains to prevailing wages, and the Nevada Labor Commissioner determines the period of time of any disqualification, one year, two years, and so forth. According to existing statute, it would be his determination. We haven’t changed that in any way.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
Maybe it would be more appropriate than whether the applicant is disqualified from being awarded.
Jim Keenan:
Yes, sir. It does make sense, but we’re not changing that. That’s now in current law, and we certainly wouldn’t want to do any more amendments to this one.
Chairman Collins:
Any other questions? Steve Holloway is the last in favor. Did you want to come do a “me, too”?
Steve Holloway, Executive Vice President, Associated General Contractors, Las Vegas Chapter:
Me, too.
Chairman Collins:
I’ve got three more people to bring up here. All three of you have marked being opposed to A.B. 295. Have you looked at the amendments proposed this morning [Exhibit C and Exhibit D]? If you have, let’s start by acknowledging that after you give your name.
Derek Morse, Deputy Executive Director, Washoe County Regional Transportation Commission:
It’s a little difficult to say what we do support and what we don’t support in this particular process because of the flurry of amendments that have occurred, but I would like to make a few points about this. We do support the ability of local governments to prequalify contractors, but we also support the ability of local governments to have flexibility in this process. The advantages of the current legislation are that we can set the criteria for prequalification and that, in setting the criteria, we also have some control over the cost and bureaucracy.
Chairman Collins:
“Current legislation” meaning?
Derek Morse:
The current law as it exists today. We can understand the desire of some parties to have more specific, consistent criteria. We would support that, as long as those criteria are reasonable. We don’t believe any of the criteria that we’ve seen are unreasonable that have been proposed in the proposed legislation. However, going a little bit further, we would like local government to have the ability to add additional criteria as they see fit for their particular needs and the particular project at hand.
We also think it would be wise for local governments, at their option, to have the ability to accept the prequalification made by any other local government or state agency in this process. That would then allow us to not duplicate the prequalification process conducted by the State Public Works Board, for instance.
One of the reasons this is important to us is that we do a lot of work for the Nevada Department of Transportation [NDOT]. Currently, on some projects, we will require that contractors be prequalified by that department [NDOT] or by the State Public Works Board to bid on our job because we are, in effect, doing it for the state. The way we read the legislation now, we would no longer have the ability to do that.
Chairman Collins:
You read in Assembly Bill 295 that you would no longer be able to use their criteria or their qualified bidders?
Derek Morse:
The way the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) reads this bill [A.B. 295] as it is proposed right now, if we choose to prequalify, we have to develop and set up our own entire, independent process.
Chairman Collins:
Is this the governing body of a group of citizens in Washoe County?
Derek Morse:
That is correct.
Chairman Collins:
That have the ability to, in a public hearing, to say they adopt the criteria of the State Public Works Board. All approved, say aye. Is it that simple? Is that available to you?
Derek Morse:
The way we read the legislation as proposed, our legal counsel has advised us that he does not think that would be possible for us to do.
Eileen O’Grady, Committee Counsel:
I agree. I don’t think it would be, and I don’t think under existing law it is, either.
Derek Morse:
I think the problem here is that we have developed and, perhaps we have in existing law, a gray area. We have interpreted in the past that we would have the ability to do that, but clearly in the new legislation, it remains gray. We would like to have that clarified. We would like to have the specific ability to do that if this legislation moves forward and becomes law.
Eileen O’Grady:
I think we need to clarify some language to make that clearer, because right now I think there is a gray area.
Derek Morse:
We would be more than happy, because we don’t think it’s that extensive, to provide language to the Subcommittee that we think would address that particular problem, if you would desire that.
Chairman Collins:
Is there anyone who has signed in this morning in favor of Assembly Bill 295 that sees any unintended consequences in allowing this conceptual amendment that lets you local groups simply say we follow the state’s list?
Steve Holloway:
Speaking for the group, no, we do not. If Eileen O’Grady or you wanted to modify that language or pass a conceptual amendment so that you could modify the language, we would have no problem with that.
Chairman Collins:
That would allow you to just adopt, if you chose to, the state’s contractors that they have qualified.
Steve Holloway:
We see no problem with that, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Collins:
Then we need a clarification on this conceptual plan. Are you accepting state contractors that are prequalified by the state of Nevada, or are you accepting a contractors’ list by another local government? For example, if Reno prequalified or Washoe County prequalified, would you be able to use that list versus developing your own? Where do you want to distinguish it?
Derek Morse:
We would like the ability to accept the prequalification of any other agency. We perform, not only work for the state, but we may have jobs in which we pick up work for Reno, Sparks, Washoe County, and other agencies. They may insist that they want to use only prequalified contractors that they have prequalified on a particular portion of the contract. It could be utility work or anything else. This would then allow us to meet their needs, and at the same time, save the public money by combining all these works simultaneously into one contract where it’s more efficient to do the work.
Chairman Collins:
You’re the RTC of Washoe County that does roads and public transportation, and the construction associated with those roads, which might be moving utilities, traffic signals, et cetera?
Derek Morse:
That is correct. We also do extensive utility work on some of our jobs as we’re building the roads, so they’re not torn up later. We sometimes have as many as six different funding sources and entities participating in a contract that’s an RTC contract.
Chairman Collins:
That you administer?
Derek Morse:
That’s correct.
Chairman Collins:
Including buildings for your own outfit?
Derek Morse:
That is correct.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
Again, that would only be enabling. It would be “may” rather than “shall.”
Derek Morse:
Yes, I think that in order to maintain that flexibility, it should be “may” in that regard.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
I would like to ensure that, just because they were prequalified by NDOT, doesn’t mean they could say, “You will use me because I’m already qualified.”
Chairman Collins:
If they chose to use a prequalified list. Are we still okay? You could still adopt your own if you ever chose to?
Derek Morse:
That would be our desire. Again, if we do a specific federal project, there may be any host of reasons why we would like to maintain that flexibility in the process.
Lori Ashton, Representative, Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters:
Before you, you have my proposed merger document [Exhibit E]. Yesterday, the State Public Works Board moved forward with their amendments to include the ability to disqualify subcontractors. We talked about that at the last session. I still think it’s imperative to have that flexibility for public bodies to codify in law what three major entities are currently doing and who have adopted this criteria through public hearings that included 11 to 12 representatives from the building trades. I think to not do it really limits the process of prequalification.
Most of the language that they have in A.B. 295 as far as objective criteria is very limiting and prohibitive to public bodies. As the language exists currently, small government entities could adopt, through public hearing, whatever criteria they felt was necessary to be used for the evaluation of contractors. As A.B. 295 exists, there is no longer going to be any public involvement in that process. It will be very exclusionary, and it will be limited only to the criteria that are listed. No more will public agencies, associated contractors representatives, or any of the like be contacted and notified that a prequalification process was going to be used. There will be no external monitoring of that process. As A.B. 295 exists now, there is no more interaction with outside sources. It becomes a very local issue, whether they do it or don’t do it.
In addition to that, the objective criteria which we said we could agree to provided there was some additional things added, the “by evidence of or disciplinary action or adjudication,” was something that I worked with Randy Robison to come up with. We have no problem with inserting that.
What they did leave out was in our amendment proposal, letter (k) and letter (l) on page 3 of Exhibit E. Why a public body doesn’t want to look to see whether a company has ever had a prior bankruptcy, I do not know. Letter (l) is whether the application of the applicant is truthful and complete. It would be very easy in this limited criteria for an applicant to omit pertinent information that’s requested. Therefore, the application as it would be provided would be truthful. However, he may have omitted multiple infractions of the law. To me, this would be another reason to review it and look to disqualify.
The second portion of this, and I think this may address the Washoe County RTC’s concern, is where we have added a subsection 2 [page 3 of Exhibit E]. It says, “In addition to the criteria set forth in subsection 1, a governing body may adopt any other criteria that it deems necessary to determine whether a person is qualified to bid on contracts for public works of the local government.” It then reverts back to the process of the public hearing to adopt any additional criteria, therefore, not making this criteria limited.
In that section in itself, I would think the Washoe County RTC could interject additional criteria through that process that says they would like, in addition to the criteria we’ve adopted, we would also take into consideration—it doesn’t limit it now. In case in the next two years someone decides there’s other criteria they should be looking at. The other portion that we addressed, our concern is there’s no longer going to be a public hearing for prequalification. It will be a totally internal process, with no input.
In our Section 3, NRS 338.1379 [page 4 of Exhibit E], this would address some of that concern in that, if prequalification is utilized and an application is submitted, then the construction trade associations, the labor unions, and other interested parties would be notified of the receipt of such an application and would have a chance to review and add input if some knowledge exists that would be pertinent to the criteria. Without that, I think we would be best left to leave the current statute as it sits.
Three of the largest entities currently have that language in place. This would require those entities to go back and remove portions of their application that have been decided upon by listening and taking evidence from multiple persons, and which was adopted by the Clark County Commission, the Las Vegas City Council, and the Clark County School District. To go backwards does not make a lot of sense to me.
Every year, we try to add and strengthen the criteria. This year, it seems like people want to become very exclusionary with public interaction. They want to separate their responsibility different than the state. Though the legislators mandated to do prequalification, it seems like they want to do dilution. I implore that if we cannot include the ability to disqualify subcontractors, if we cannot include this additional language, that it would better serve the public’s best interest to do nothing at all.
Chairman Collins:
The addition of the language proposed that evidence of disciplinary action or adjudication by the Nevada State Contractors Board—that’s only partially it. I guess the question goes back to (k) and (l) that you talked about being left out. Any contractor that files bankruptcy, the Nevada State Contractors Board has to know that already, correct?
Lori Ashton:
Yes, but this is just evidence of a bankruptcy, so that a public body can take a look at it.
Chairman Collins:
If I go as a contractor and file bankruptcy, I have to tell the Nevada State Contractors Board, yes or no?
Lori Ashton:
You are supposed to.
Chairman Collins:
The second part was whether the application was truthful and complete. Can’t the Nevada State Contractors Board require some fingerprinting and so forth already, verifying who they are, their bonds, and they have to have an account and provide them? When a contractor goes to the Nevada State Contractors Board, don’t they already meet that?
Lori Ashton:
This is referencing the qualification application that would be implemented because of this criteria, not the application to the Nevada State Contractors Board.
Chairman Collins:
This requires in A.B. 295 whether the applicant possesses a valid contractors’ license of a class corresponding to the work, where the applicant has the ability to obtain bonding, et cetera. You can’t get a bond if you’re in bankruptcy. A bond company is not going to issue you one. I think those two issues don’t mean anything here, because of existing laws.
Lori Ashton:
What I would question is, principal personnel transfer from company to company on multiple occasions, and you could have had a company go bankrupt, and this person who was deceitful or was the background of that bankruptcy could end up showing up as a principal personnel on a second license.
Chairman Collins:
Only after going through the process with the Nevada State Contractors Board. The Nevada State Contractors Board is going to clean house, so do we need to go address the Nevada State Contractors Board, or do you want to try to do this in a prequalify?
Lori Ashton:
Currently, in the three applications that have been adopted, it’s a question for each and every one of them to show whether or not they have a bankruptcy. If we don’t put it in, then they’re going back to their applications and they’re removing it.
Chairman Collins:
Who is removing whether or not you’ve ever had a bankruptcy?
Lori Ashton:
The Clark County School District, City of Las Vegas, and Clark County would have to because the application would not concur with the criteria that was proposed in A.B. 295. If these additional criteria are added, then I believe their applications can stand as is.
Chairman Collins:
If this passes, they can take if off of their application request because they’re relying on the Nevada State Contractors Board to only allow them to be in business if they’re truthful in meeting those things.
Lori Ashton:
What I’m saying is they have an application that went through a public hearing. If the language of A.B. 295 goes through, as it exists, there will be a lot of deletions and modifications to no one else’s knowledge.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
To me, A.B. 295 established a baseline criteria. There is nothing that precludes local government from establishing more stringent criteria by ordinance. To me, A.B. 295 just established a baseline and then, if the local government wants to go beyond that and require (k) and (l) and all those other things, they can do that by ordinance.
Lori Ashton:
I don’t see it anywhere in statute. You could ask LCB [Legislative Counsel Bureau]. Prior to these adjustments, there were hearings taking place. They had three or four criteria that they could adopt and implement criteria under. Now, we’re getting to very objective criteria, saying this is the only criteria that you can use. If I’m misunderstanding that, then let LCB clear it up for us.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
I’ll defer to Ms. O’Grady, but I believe the county has the ability to put anything in place, as long as it’s more stringent and not more lenient.
Eileen O’Grady:
Under current law, as Lori Ashton said, there is criteria that the governing body can use to establish criteria, but the intent of this bill [A.B. 295] is to put objective criteria in statute, and that would be what would be applied for prequalification.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
Then, Ms. O’Grady, you don’t feel that the county, by ordinance, could move beyond that and incorporate the other in their local ordinance?
Eileen O’Grady:
No, I don’t think that’s the intent of this legislation or as it’s written.
Chairman Collins:
That’s where your number 2 comes into play in addition to the criteria set forth?
Lori Ashton:
That is correct.
Chairman Collins:
That’s why you’d like to have that?
Lori Ashton:
And also on the disqualification of subcontractors that currently exists in all three applications. Without that being in there that in addition would be removed.
Chairman Collins:
This would force them to remove some of those requirements that they currently have in their local?
Ted Olivas, Assistant Director, Clark County Finance Department:
[Introduced himself.] The intent that is in these criteria was to allow us additional flexibility because the current criteria—if you look on page 2, line16, of A.B. 295, said that the criteria “may include only,” and there were only four criteria listed. As Ms. Ashton stated to this Subcommittee, part of our problem in going through out prequalification process is that we had to attempt to expand on what these things meant. As a “non-home rule” entity, we felt that we were going beyond what the four criteria actually meant. That’s why we developed additional criteria.
We thought that we would continue to have the flexibility to expand on these as we did with the previous four criteria. We actually thought that this was more open-ended because it didn’t say “may include only.” It just says you adopt these criteria. It would go about the same process asking similar questions that we would ask now.
Chairman Collins:
Let me stop you there. You’re talking about 1 and 2; and 5 and 6 were the existing; and now there’s 11?
Ted Olivas:
That is correct.
Chairman Collins:
The question then would be, how are you adopting this criteria if you’re taking out the public hearing process? Are you putting that back in a different way?
Ted Olivas:
The intent was, the current statute says that before you adopt the criteria, you hold a public hearing to seek input from the community. The criteria are the criteria, so the jurisdiction either does it or they don’t do it. The criteria are in the law, so why go before the governing body to adopt criteria that’s already set forth in the law?
Chairman Collins:
How would anybody know that you’re prequalifying?
Ted Olivas:
As we do with all of our bids, we have requirements to advertise in the newspaper, and we would follow the same protocol that we follow now with all of our other projects.
Lori Ashton:
I think the question is, if adopted as A.B. 295 exists with their proposals, they will be removing their ability to disqualify subcontractors. They will be altering some of the criteria because it is not then codified in law.
Steve Muchicko, Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, Northern Nevada:
[Introduced himself.] I’d like to mirror the comments made by Ms. Ashton. Secondly, on the omission of (l) that was not put in the bill, on whether the applicant was truthful and complete; this leads to why even do the process? If the information that you submit does not have to be complete or truthful, what’s the basis that the entity is actually going to have to go after? Otherwise, the public agency would have to do a thorough investigation on their own, is the way I see it. I think that should be included in the bill. Basically, we’re opposed to the amendments as they stand without any changes.
Chairman Collins:
An applicant is truthful and complete on a bid for a public works job. That’s the issue. Right?
Lori Ashton:
Just to clarify, the applicant’s application is truthful and complete, meaning the prequalification application with the criteria that they’re asking for, is truthful and complete, because you could have violated every law.
Chairman Collins:
I’m going to use myself again. I got my contractor’s license eight years ago. I go down next week, bid on a public works project, and fill out an application. How does anyone verify that my application is truthful and complete, other than they can see on the Internet that I’m a licensed contractor, here’s my bond, here’s the number of complaints, here’s what that classification is eligible to do? I’ve got two licenses, so both of those can be looked at right there on the Internet. They can see who my qualifier is, they can see my bonding ability, they’ve got my address and phone number. What untruthful thing are you afraid will be put on the application?
Lori Ashton:
We’re talking about prequalification here, not an application to bid to do the project. This is a process that takes place prior to a person ever being able to bid.
Chairman Collins:
On the prequalification application is where you’re questioning truthfulness and completeness?
Lori Ashton:
That is correct.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
Do you have any real heartburn with adopting that Section 2 that Lori Ashton proposed [Exhibit E] that would allow a governing body to adopt some additional criteria if they did it through the public hearing/ordinance process?
Steve Holloway:
Yes, we do have some heartburn with that. What has happened in the past is, there’s been some feeling that a lot of the criteria that has been adopted has not necessarily been objective or applied objectively. We spent two years now working with the different public works agencies throughout the state and with the different industry groups to come up with some criteria that was a consensus, accepted by all. It has been accepted by all except for the carpenters. You’ve heard testimony from Clark County School District here that has existing criteria. You’ve heard testimony from Clark County itself, which has existing criteria. You’ve got people from the City of Las Vegas that has existing criteria. They all want this changed. They would all like standard, objective criteria, and an end to the politics in developing those criteria.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
Thank you. I can understand that, too.
Jeanette Belz:
I agree wholeheartedly with Steve Holloway. When you’re a contractor, you want to be able to go in and see what criteria you’re going to be evaluated against and that there’s some consistency. That’s what we’ve been trying to do, is take those four more generic criteria, “flush” them out a little bit more, and make them more objective. We’ve worked quite a long time to get to here.
Chairman Collins:
By not having the flexibility in that portion, though, it restricts a local entity from, if I understand it, putting in an additional requirement. On the other hand, everybody’s the same from north to south, from Stateline to Wendover. That’s your intent, to be consistent?
Steve Holloway:
Yes, our intent is to be consistent and objective throughout the state.
Chairman Collins:
By being that restrictive and in not allowing you to have an additional concern or additional requirements, especially in Clark County, what if something comes up and all of a sudden you say, you know what, we’ve got to come back and change it in two years, versus having some ability to say, you know, within this regulation, I had to let them go out there?
Ted Olivas:
We felt that we would have the ability, just like the current 4 criteria, to expand in our questioning of the contracts, but the 11 criteria that are before you, in working with the general contracting industry, we felt that this was a fair representation of selecting contractors for our projects, so I don’t believe that it’s limiting. I think that it allows for us to adequately question the qualifications of the general contractors on our projects. We don’t see it as limiting.
Steve Holloway:
These are very broad criteria, and Ted Olivas is absolutely right. In the application itself, you can get at a lot of information to get the answer to these criteria to determine whether the contractor meets these criteria.
Chairman Collins:
In adding the other conceptual amendment proposed that they can use somebody else’s list, this seems bigger than it was before.
Steve Holloway:
It is.
Chairman Collins:
I think there’s some flexibility there, maybe not the flexibility to come in and say that they’ve all got to wear green hardhats or something.
Jeanette Belz:
If you look at the criteria, you look at the variety of things that you’re actually wrapping your arms around, whether they’ve got a valid contractor’s license, and all the things that get incorporated into whether you do or not—disciplinary actions, principal personnel, previous history with similar projects, convictions of violations on discrimination. We’re really covering an extremely broad area, and I think as Ted Olivas stated earlier, you’re trying to determine whether people are qualified or not. I think you have an awful lot here to work with.
Assemblyman Manendo:
If we added (k) and (l), could you live with that?
Steve Holloway:
We don’t see a problem with (k) and (l). I think it’s redundant, but basically see no problem.
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
I agree, because when you get to criteria number 4, whether the principal personnel has the professional qualifications, I think you can probably tear almost any application up with that. If you don’t like them, you can probably get them thrown out.
Chairman Collins:
That’s true. Is there anything else that has to be said in the next 30 seconds? [Mr. Holloway and Ms. Belz thanked Chairman Collins.]
ASSEMBLYMAN GOICOECHEA MOVED TO AMEND AND DO PASS A.B. 295.
We have got Assembly Bill 295 with the amendment from the consensus group [Exhibit C], with the conceptual amendment that may use others’ lists, adding from the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters’ amendment [Exhibit E] letters (l) and (k) under Section 1, whether the application of the applicant is truthful and complete, and whether the applicant has filed as a debtor under the United States Bankruptcy Code during the 5 years immediately preceding the date of the application, so that would make them 12 and 13, and then adding language on page 3 on number 10 of A.B. 295, “by evidence of disciplinary action or adjudication,” which was also suggested language [Exhibit D] by the carpenters. Does that cover all of your proposed amendments and accepting the deleted language on A.B. 295, Mr. Goicoechea?
Assemblyman Goicoechea:
I believe so.
ASSEMBLYMAN MANENDO SECONDED THE MOTION.
Chairman Collins:
The only thing that I’m not sure was answered clear enough was the public notification issues. This is the criteria that a contractor walks in, governing body puts up a bid, there’s a criteria of what you have to do to be qualified. It’s fixed, it’s the law, here’s the requirements, here’s how you become qualified. Does the contractor come to you before?
Ted Olivas:
We still have an obligation to advertise in the newspaper to notify all the contractors. By policy, we have an obligation to notify the appropriate labor organizations as part of our normal course of business. We would still do the public notice and put all of the general contracting organizations on notice, so that this is consistent with our current policy and what’s in the law now. Our notice doesn’t change.
Chairman Collins:
And in your notice in the paper or your posted notices, it tells that contractors must be prequalified? That’s also so posted?
Ted Olivas:
Yes. All we would say now is that we are now accepting applications, the application is available at these locations, and come on down, we’d love to do business with you.
THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
Chairman Collins:
The Subcommittee has move to amend and do pass A.B. 295. I guess I should have included, “and report to the main Government Affairs.” We will do that. We are adjourned. [8:03 a.m.]
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
Pat Hughey
Committee Secretary
APPROVED BY:
Assemblyman Tom Collins, Chairman
DATE: