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.
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.