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Construction Law Authority / Legislation  / New Year Brings Potential CCNA Change

New Year Brings Potential CCNA Change

Florida Statutes, Section 287.055, known as the Consultants’ Competitive Negotiation Act ("CCNA"), provides a framework for the public procurement of professional services. Professional services are defined to include those services "within the practice of architecture, professional engineering, landscape architecture, or registered surveying and mapping".

The CCNA provides that the price of the service is not a factor in the evaluation and ranking of the firms. Price may only be considered as part of the negotiation phase. Further, an agency is limited to negotiating price with one firm at a time. In other words, the only pricing that is received is from the top ranked firm, and pricing from the second ranked firm is not received unless negotiations with the first firm are formally terminated.

There is a Bill pending in the Florida Legislature that would modify the above process. Specifically, Senate Bill No. 246 provides for proposed amendments to the CCNA, including the introduction of a "best value selection" process. If enacted, the best value selection process would enable an agency to seek pricing from more than one of the ranked firms. The process would be a two stage procedure, wherein after firms are evaluated and ranked, pricing could be sought from the ranked firms. From there, the agency would select the firm determined to provide the best value; provided, however, that the criterion pertaining to compensation may not exceed 50 percent of the total weight of the published advertising criteria.

The best value procedure would be a significant change to the CCNA process. Accordingly, those firms which provide professional services to public agencies may want to track the progress of SB 246. If enacted, it would take effect on July 1, 2012.

Author

  • William J. Cea

    As a Board Certified Construction Attorney, Mr. Cea has handled multi-million dollar construction disputes, including defect cases on behalf of community associations, individual property owners, contractors, design professionals and developers.

William Cea

wcea@beckerlawyers.com

As a Board Certified Construction Attorney, Mr. Cea has handled multi-million dollar construction disputes, including defect cases on behalf of community associations, individual property owners, contractors, design professionals and developers.

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