Business and Legal Insights

On June 26, 2020, Governor Ron DeSantis signed fifteen bills into law, including HB 441, a revision to the allowable maximum dollar amount for continuing contracts for construction projects. Increasing the dollar cap from $2 million to $4 million, the legislation revises the maximum dollar amount that a public entity can spend to procure certain services under a continuing contract.

In addition to increasing the cap on continuing contracts for construction projects, the bill also increases the cap for study activities associated with public construction projects, from $200,000 to $500,000.

Continuing Contracts

Under the Florida Legislature’s Consultants’ Competitive Negotiation Act (CCNA), a continuing contract is a contract for professional services (of an architect, professional engineer, landscape architect, or registered surveyor and mapper), whereby a business provides professional services to an agency for several projects. Permissible on public construction projects for professional and construction services, continuing contracts allow for public entities to group smaller contracts into one RFP/RFQ process, so long as the sum of the total value of all the contracts does not exceed the cap. By grouping smaller, but substantially similar contracts together, public entities and the companies bidding on such work save time and money in their competitive solicitations.

Since 2009, continuing contract consolidations had been limited to a cap of $2 million, failing to reflect rising industry costs, inflation and market conditions over the past decade. According to the Associated Builders and Contractors of Florida, the bill’s passage will not only provide cost savings for public entities, but will also “allow for smaller companies to gain experience on multiple and smaller projects via one project award.”