The Washington State Department of Transportation and Sound Transit.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the regional transit authority known as Sound Transit are public owners of complex transportation systems, including highways, light rail, bus rapid transit, and other multimodal facilities, with multiple construction contracts underway concurrently.  Both entities utilize a mix of traditional public works contracting methods and alternative public works contracting procedures to award contracts to responsible bidders for project delivery. 

Traditional Public Works Contracting.

Public work means all work, construction, alteration, repair, or improvement other than ordinary maintenance, executed at the cost of the state or of any municipality.  Once a public body secures design of a public works project, either through in-house engineering or hiring a consultant, a competitive bidding process is required for most of those projects.  State law generally requires agencies to award public works contracts to a responsible bidder with the lowest responsive bid.  Contractors that provide the bid are referred to as the prime contractor, and this process of awarding public works contracts is often referred to as the design-bid-build process.

Alternative Public Works Contracting Procedures.

Alternative public works contracting procedures include:  (1) the design-build procedure; (2) general contracting/construction manager (GC/CM) contracting procedure; and (3) job order contracting.  The design-build procedure means a contract between a public body and another party in which the party agrees to both design and build the facility.  A GC/CM is a firm with which a public body has selected to provide services during the design phase and negotiated a maximum allowable construction cost to act as the GC/CM during the construction phase.  In addition to these alternative public works contracting procedures, the WSDOT is authorized to use the progressive-design-build procedure by which the WSDOT selects a design-builder before the establishment of a final project design, price, and schedule, and thereafter, the WSDOT and design-builder collaborate to develop a final project scope, schedule, and price.

Construction Multiple Award Task Order Contracting.

A Construction Multiple Award Task Order Contract (MATOC) is a competitively awarded contract under which multiple pre-qualified contractors are selected to compete for future, project-specific construction task orders.   This method of contracting is also called a "bench" contract, an "on-call" contract, or an "indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity" contract.  Construction Multiple Award Task Order Contracts allow public owners of large-scale construction projects to make faster, flexible procurements of project delivery for renovations, repairs, and new construction without negotiating a new contract for every project.  Construction Multiple Award Task Order Contracts are often pooled for type of work or size of firm.  Construction Multiple Award Task Order Contracts are successfully utilized by federal agencies as well as state and local government owners of large-scale transportation construction projects.

The WSDOT and Sound Transit are authorized to use the MATOC alternative process for awarding contracts for construction, renovation, repair, alteration, or improvement to transportation systems, including highways, light rail, and other transportation infrastructure.  The agencies may create a single roster or multiple rosters of pre-qualified contractors for different categories of anticipated work.

The WSDOT and Sound Transit must create award and protest processes, criteria for qualifications, including those outlined in House Bill 2552.  The WSDOT must report on the use of the MATOC and its outcomes to the Capital Projects Advisory Board and the Transportation Committees of the Legislature.  Sound Transit is also required to report on the use of the MATOC.