Public contracts: best value construction contracting for counties, cities, and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments

Local governments may weigh contractor qualifications alongside price for more public construction projects rather than relying solely on the lowest bid. The law retains transparency, competition, workforce, and reporting safeguards.

What the law does ​

• Authorizes counties, cities, and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments to use best-value bidding for construction projects over $500,000.
• Requires public findings that best-value bidding for a specific project would reduce costs, speed completion, or provide features unavailable through lowest-bid contracting.
• Requires published evaluation criteria, bidder prequalification, at least three responsive bids, conflict-of-interest procedures, written award decisions, and public award disclosures.
• Selects the winning bidder by the lowest price-to-qualifications-score ratio, with qualifications including finances, experience, management, labor compliance, and safety.
• Requires contractors and subcontractors to commit to using a skilled and trained workforce for apprenticeable construction work, unless a qualifying project labor agreement applies.
• Allows counties to continue using best-value annual unit-price contracts for repair, remodeling, and repetitive work, subject to existing value and renewal limits.
• Requires participating governing bodies to report program results to legislative committees by March 1, 2031, and repeals the authority on January 1, 2032.

Who it affects ​

• Counties, cities, and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments that choose to use the program.
• Construction contractors and subcontractors bidding on covered public projects.
• Construction workers in apprenticeable building and construction trades.

Context ​

The law extends an existing county best-value contracting program to cities and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments while lowering its prior $1 million project threshold.