2005 Washington Revised Code RCW 39.10.130: Job order contracts. (Effective until July 1, 2007.)

(1) Public bodies may use a job order contract for public works projects when:

     (a) A public body has made a determination that the use of job order contracts will benefit the public by providing an effective means of reducing the total lead-time and cost for public works projects or repair required at public facilities through the use of unit price books and work orders by eliminating time-consuming, costly aspects of the traditional public works process, which require separate contracting actions for each small project;

     (b) The work order to be issued for a particular project does not exceed two hundred thousand dollars;

     (c) Less than twenty percent of the dollar value of the work order consists of items of work not contained in the unit price book; and

     (d) At least eighty percent of the job order contract must be subcontracted to entities other than the job order contractor.

     (2) Public bodies shall award job order contracts through a competitive process utilizing public requests for proposals. Public bodies shall make an effort to solicit proposals from a certified minority or certified woman-owned contractor to the extent permitted by the Washington state civil rights act, RCW 49.60.400. The public body shall publish, at least once in a legal newspaper of general circulation published in or as near as possible to that part of the county in which the public works will be done, a request for proposals for job order contracts and the availability and location of the request for proposal documents. The public body shall ensure that the request for proposal documents at a minimum includes:

     (a) A detailed description of the scope of the job order contract including performance, technical requirements and specifications, functional and operational elements, minimum and maximum work order amounts, duration of the contract, and options to extend the job order contract;

     (b) The reasons for using job order contracts;

     (c) A description of the qualifications required of the proposer;

     (d) The identity of the specific unit price book to be used;

     (e) The minimum contracted amount committed to the selected job order contractor;

     (f) A description of the process the public body will use to evaluate qualifications and proposals, including evaluation factors and the relative weight of factors. The public body shall ensure that evaluation factors include, but are not limited to, proposal price and the ability of the proposer to perform the job order contract. In evaluating the ability of the proposer to perform the job order contract, the public body may consider: The ability of the professional personnel who will work on the job order contract; past performance on similar contracts; ability to meet time and budget requirements; ability to provide a performance and payment bond for the job order contract; recent, current, and projected work loads of the proposer; location; and the concept of the proposal;

     (g) The form of the contract to be awarded;

     (h) The method for pricing renewals of or extensions to the job order contract;

     (i) A notice that the proposals are subject to the provisions of RCW 39.10.100; and

     (j) Other information relevant to the project.

     (3) A public body shall establish a committee to evaluate the proposals. After the committee has selected the most qualified finalists, the finalists shall submit final proposals, including sealed bids based upon the identified unit price book. Such bids may be in the form of coefficient markups from listed price book costs. The public body shall award the contract to the firm submitting the highest scored final proposal using the evaluation factors and the relative weight of factors published in the public request for proposals.

     (4) The public body shall provide a protest period of at least ten business days following the day of the announcement of the apparent successful proposal to allow a protester to file a detailed statement of the grounds of the protest. The public body shall promptly make a determination on the merits of the protest and provide to all proposers a written decision of denial or acceptance of the protest. The public body shall not execute the contract until two business days following the public body's decision on the protest.

     (5) The public body shall issue no work orders until it has approved, in consultation with the office of minority and women's business enterprises or the equivalent local agency, a plan prepared by the job order contractor that equitably spreads certified women and minority business enterprise subcontracting opportunities, to the extent permitted by the Washington state civil rights act, RCW 49.60.400, among the various subcontract disciplines.

     (6) Job order contracts may be executed for an initial contract term of not to exceed two years, with the option of extending or renewing the job order contract for one year. All extensions or renewals must be priced as provided in the request for proposals. The extension or renewal must be mutually agreed to by the public body and the job order contractor.

     (7) The maximum total dollar amount that may be awarded under a job order contract shall not exceed three million dollars in the first year of the job order contract, five million dollars over the first two years of the job order contract, and, if extended or renewed, eight million dollars over the three years of the job order contract.

     (8) For each job order contract, public bodies shall not issue more than two work orders equal to or greater than one hundred fifty thousand dollars in a twelve-month contract performance period.

     (9) All work orders issued for the same project shall be treated as a single work order for purposes of the one hundred fifty thousand dollar limit on work orders in subsection (8) of this section and the two hundred thousand dollar limit on work orders in subsection (1)(b) of this section.

     (10) Any new permanent, enclosed building space constructed under a work order shall not exceed two thousand gross square feet.

     (11) Each public body may have no more than two job order contracts in effect at any one time.

     (12) For purposes of chapters 39.08, 39.12, 39.76, and 60.28 RCW, each work order issued shall be treated as a separate contract. The alternate filing provisions of RCW 39.12.040(2) shall apply to each work order that otherwise meets the eligibility requirements of RCW 39.12.040(2).

     (13) The requirements of RCW 39.30.060 do not apply to requests for proposals for job order contracts.

     (14) Job order contractors shall pay prevailing wages for all work that would otherwise be subject to the requirements of chapter 39.12 RCW. Prevailing wages for all work performed pursuant to each work order must be the rates in effect at the time the individual work order is issued.

     (15) If, in the initial contract term, the public body, at no fault of the job order contractor, fails to issue the minimum amount of work orders stated in the public request for proposals, the public body shall pay the contractor an amount equal to the difference between the minimum work order amount and the actual total of the work orders issued multiplied by an appropriate percentage for overhead and profit contained in the general conditions for Washington state facility construction. This will be the contractor's sole remedy.

     (16) All job order contracts awarded under this section must be executed before July 1, 2007, however the job order contract may be extended or renewed as provided for in this section.

     (17) For purposes of this section, "public body" includes any school district.

[2003 c 301 § 1.]