(a) For any contract entered into pursuant to section 13a-95b, the Commissioner of Transportation shall: (1) Perform project development services. Such services may include, but need not be limited to, the size, type and desired design character of the project, performance specifications, quality of materials, equipment, workmanship, preliminary plans or any other information necessary for the department to issue a request for proposals, and (2) perform oversight of projects and provide inspection services, which shall include, but need not be limited to, inspection of construction, surveying, testing, monitoring of environmental compliance, quality control inspection and quality assurance audits.

(b) (1) After the first two projects performed with contracts authorized pursuant to section 13a-95b, the Commissioner of Transportation shall perform all development and inspection work, as described in subsection (a) of this section, using department employees. The commissioner may utilize consultants to perform the design of the project, if the commissioner determines, after conducting an assessment of project delivery schedule, staffing capacity and the technical expertise required, that the department lacks the capacity and technical expertise required to perform the design of a project designated to be constructed by a construction-manager-at-risk. For projects designated to be constructed using the design-build contracting method, the responsibility to perform detailed design work shall remain with the contractor. The Commissioner of Administrative Services shall place the positions required for this work on continuous recruitment pursuant to the provisions of section 5-216. In addition, employees may be appointed to durational positions to reduce the need for inspection or development work to be performed by consultants. Such employees may be appointed as engineers if they have met the education, knowledge and training requirements required by the Department of Administrative Services job classification to durational positions without examination to reduce the need for inspection or development work to be performed by consultants. Any contract entered into with a consultant for the initial project bid in accordance with section 13a-95b shall contain a provision that provides for training the employees of the Department of Transportation in the process for bidding and managing projects entered into in accordance with section 13a-95b.

(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subdivision (1) of this subsection, there shall be a transition period during which the Commissioner of Transportation may authorize the continued use of consultants if necessary to complete contracts authorized pursuant to section 13a-95b. During this period, the commissioner shall make all reasonable efforts to perform development and inspection work as described in subsection (a) of this section using, where such employees are available, department employees and reducing, and where possible eliminating, the dependency on outside consultants. The commissioner shall establish a program to train department employees to support alternative project delivery methods. Such training program may be provided in projects utilizing consultants, as provided for in this section. The commissioner shall report, on or before October first annually, to the Governor of the progress made in training employees in alternative project delivery methods, improving the diversity of technical expertise of employees and building internal project delivery capacity. The authority granted by this subdivision to use consultants on contracts entered into pursuant to section 13a-95b shall be subject to a termination date which shall be January 1, 2022, unless the Governor certifies that the use of consultants is necessary to complete projects authorized pursuant to section 13a-95b, which shall extend such termination date to a date not later than January 1, 2025.

(P.A. 12-70, S. 2; June Sp. Sess. P.A. 15-5, S. 160.)

History: P.A. 12-70 effective June 6, 2012; June Sp. Sess. P.A. 15-5 amended Subsec. (b)(1) to allow use of consultants for design in certain circumstances, amended Subsec. (b)(2) to require a program to train department employees to support alternative project delivery methods and change deadline for use of consultants from the earlier of the date the Governor certifies consultants are no longer needed or January 1, 2019, to January 1, 2022, unless the Governor certifies that the use of consultants is necessary, which shall extend the deadline to January 1, 2025, and made technical changes, effective June 30, 2015.