Washington contractors may get a boost from preferential bid treatment.
Washington is on its way to a bidder preference law. The newly signed law goes into effect on July 22, 2011, but will do little until the Department of General Administration (GA) passes an official set of procedures to allow for reciprocity. But, will this law do what it’s intended to do?
A few months back, I posted on SB 5662. In that article, I addressed the passage of a bill that would allow the State of Washington, and its agencies, to apply a percentage bidding preference to resident contractors. Any nonresident contractor who’s home state offers them a bidding preference at home, would be given a reciprocal or similar disadvantage in Washington.
The purpose of the law is to level the playing ground with out of state contractors who experience benefits at home. Many believe this is just smart business for Washington contractors, while others fear that this means higher costs or worse deals for public agencies.
Resident contractors are to be defined as those who hold a physical office in Washington. I would no doubt believe that many out of state contractors will take advantage of this loose rule, by setting up “fly by night” offices. Hopefully, the GA will fix this definition. I suspect that the GA will promulgate a responsible procedure that better defines “resident contractor” to include contractors who actually operate in the state, using resident employees.
The next task is for the GA to survey other state laws and then put together a preferred procedure for enforcing the bidder preference. When this is released, you can expect to see something here on Builders Counsel.
