Association sees itself fighting multi-pronged battle

The association has taken issue with the state Schools Development Authority, as well as the New Jersey Economic Stimulus Act of 2009, which is intended to spur development in designated areas; the Legislature passed the bill last month.

SDA officials have objected to the association’s characterization of how open the school-construction bidding process is.

SDA Chief Executive Officer Kris Kolluri has said the process the agency is using, called design-build, promotes job creation quickly, includes one of the most successful state efforts to promote small businesses and safeguards taxpayer dollars.

The association sued SDA over the process in June.

Suit: Bid format excludes small firms

Association attorney Edward J. Frisch expressed disappointment with the stimulus act as well. He said that an earlier version of the bill mandated that construction of projects on state college and university campuses would follow the public bidding law, but the final law said the private builders who do the work don’t have to follow this law.

“This was permitting these colleges to do indirectly what they specifically could not do” if they built the buildings themselves, Frisch said. While developers would build the projects, public money would indirectly support the construction, he said.

Association Executive Director Alan P. O’Shea said when traditional approaches to public bidding aren’t followed, it opens up the possibility that public money could be given to the politically connected. O’Shea said family contracting businesses that have been involved in major public projects for three generations are not eligible for more and more projects.

“We’re not looking for protectionism,” O’Shea said. “We’re looking for involvement.”

Construction industry supporters of the SDA process have said there are numerous safeguards to prevent favoritism, and that there is no reason why the process is more susceptible to problems than any advocated by the contractors association.

E-mail Andrew Kitchenman at akitchenman@njbiz.com.