About Pre-qualification

Quality Bidders was developed to provide an on-line tool for districts to reach out to the contracting community and assemble a pool of qualified contractors to bid on their projects. Below is a short summary of the options, and obligations, that school districts have with regard to pre-qualifying contractors before accepting competitive bids for work and registering contractors for informally bid work.

Bid Pre-Qualification: California school districts may require contractors to submit a standardized questionnaire and financial statements to determine if they’re qualified to bid. Contractors must declare, under penalty of perjury, that submitted information is true. Submitted questionnaires and financial statements are not public records and shall not be open to the public.

  • Public Contract Code 20111.5 enables districts to require contractors to be pre-qualified prior to accepting bids.
  • Public Contract Code 20111.6 requires certain districts to pre-qualify contractor, and mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) subcontractors before bids can be accepted when certain projects are funded in part by State bonds. Pre-qualification applies to the following licenses:
  • General Contractors (A and B)
  • Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing subcontractors (C-4, C-7, C-10, C-16, C-20, C-34, C-36, C-38, C-42, C-43, and C-46)
  • Assembly Bill 1565: AB 1565 is a law that went into effect January 1, 2014. It requires school districts with over 2,500 students to pre-qualify bidders (General and MEP subcontractors) for construction contracts if the total project value is $1,000,000 or more and if the project is funded, in whole or in part, with State bond funds. AB 1565, in part, added Section 20111.6 to the Public Contract Code.

CUPCCAA Informal Bid Registration: Bids for informally bid projects are solicited through notices to construction trade journals and/or notices sent to contractors on a list of registered contractors maintained by the district. CUPCCAA is an acronym for California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act. Since 1983, school districts that adopt CUPCCAA procedures may perform public project work up to $60,000 with their in-house work force, and informally bid construction projects up to $200,000 to contractors.

  • Districts may accept applications to be added to their list of CUPCCAA interested contractors at any time; however, all applications are renewed between November and December of each year.