Beginning January 1, 2014 Section 20111.6 of the Public Contract Code (added by Assembly Bill 1565) requires a school district with 2,500 or more students to pre-qualify bidders for construction contracts greater than $1,000,000 when the project is funded, in whole or in part, with State bond funds. The contractor, and mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) subcontractors must be pre-qualified before bids can be accepted.

In addition, school districts may choose to pre-qualify bidders for other projects per Section 20111.5 of the Public Contract Code.

The questions were initially developed by a team assembled from several San Diego County school districts. Questions are based on DIR guidelines and field experience managing pre-qualification programs in school districts. Future revisions will be made based on input from participating districts and leading contractor groups.

District access to Quality Bidders is charged on an annual basis. The fee is based on the number of students served by each district. The fee is a fraction of the savings provided by automating the process to collect, score and process applications.

CUPCCAA is an acronym for California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act. CUPCCAA is a program created in 1983 by the Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act, which is enacted in Public Contracts Code Sections 22000 through 22045. School districts that choose to adopt CUPCCAA procedures may perform public project work up to $60,000 with their own work force, and informally bid construction projects up to $200,000 to contractors.

Quality Bidders builds and maintains two lists. Districts that have adopted CUPCCAA are required to maintain a list of qualified and interested bidders for projects up to $200,000, Quality Bidders builds and maintains this list — the CUPCCAA application is a simple 2-step questionnaire. The Quality Bidders standardized questionnaire used to build and maintain the Pre-Qualified Bidder list for larger projects is comprised of 5-steps and satisfies DIR and AB 1565 requirements.

The system automatically makes copies of the application and submits a copy to each District selected.

No. Once a Bidder submits a complete application, Quality Bidders notifies the District via email.

Yes. From the Reports tab, you can query the listing by the following fields: Company, Address, License Classification, Status, Expiration Date.

Yes. From the Reports tab you can export to PDF or Excel. The Dashboards tab sends email addresses directly to your email application for quick notifications to selected qualified contractors.

A Per Section 20111.6, the questionnaires and financial statements shall not be public records and shall not be open to public inspection; however, records of the names of Bidders applying for pre-qualification status shall be public records subject to disclosure under Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code.

All data is stored on a set of secured servers in a protected environment that has passed industry security standards. All documents that are uploaded are encrypted and are only accessible by authorized personnel. All data passing through the Internet is encrypted during transit to prevent exposure to unapproved parties.

The Bidder can access the Contact Tab and select a District to send an email.

Access the Tab called Contact Us to send an email to Technical Support.

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 districts to pre-qualify contractor, and mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) subcontractors before bids can be accepted when 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)

The pre-qualification process will begin with online registration. Once registered, you will be directed to an online Pre-Qualification Questionnaire. After completing the Questionnaire, you can submit it to one or more participating districts. We highly recommend that you use the latest version of Google Chrome as your web browser.

No, this service is provided to you at no cost.

There will be an attachment control on questions requiring attachments. You will be able to browse your computer's files and select the appropriate file to upload.

Each district you submitted to will receive a copy of your pre-qualification questionnaire and attachments. Each district will review and will use this information as the basis for rating you with respect to the size and scope of contracts that you are pre-qualified to bid for.

You will be sent an email notifying you of your status and your bid limit. Your company name will be added to the district's publically available pre-qualified bidders list if the district determines that you are pre-qualified.

The Quality Bidders standardized questionnaire is based on guidelines for rating bidders developed by the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR). Each district has adopted and applied a uniform system of rating bidders on the basis of the completed questionnaire and financial statements.

Contractor who has submitted a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, and who receives a rating of "not qualified" from a District may appeal that determination. There is no appeal from a finding that a Contractor is not pre-qualified because of a late applications or a failure to submit required information, but re-application during one of the designated time periods is permitted. A Contractor may appeal a District's decision with respect to its request for pre-qualification, and request a hearing, by giving notice to the District no later than ten business days after receipt of notice of its qualification status. Notice(s) shall be sent to the appropriate District's address. The districts' addresses will be displayed on the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire. Unless a Contractor files a timely appeal, the Contractor waives any and all rights to challenge the qualification decision of the District, whether by administrative process, judicial process or any other legal process or proceeding.

If the Contractor gives the required notice of appeal and requests a hearing, the hearing shall be conducted no later than ten business days after the District's receipt of its Notice of Appeal. The hearing so provided shall be an informal process conducted by a panel to which the District has delegated responsibility to hear such appeals (the "Appeals Panel"). At or prior to the hearing, the Contractor will be advised of the basis for the District's pre-qualification determination. The Contractor will be given the opportunity to present information and present reasons in opposition to the pre-qualification determination. At the conclusion of the hearing or no later than one day after completion of the hearing, the Appeals Panel will render its decision. The date for submission and opening of bids for a specific project will not be delayed or postponed to allow for completion of an appeal process.

This determination varies with each district, but typically is based upon an evaluation of your Aggregate Bonding Capacity, financial stability, value of previous public education projects, and questionnaire score.

You can save your work at any time and return to your Questionnaire at a later to complete the process.

You will receive an email notification prior to expiration of your application.

Steps to renew/copy your application:

• Login to Quality Bidders
• Click the "Pre-Qualification Apps" button
• Find the app you want to copy and select "Copy" (listed on the far-right column under the "Actions" header). This will create a new application that will appear at the top of the application list.
• Click the application’s "Review" link and update any information as needed.
• Go to Step 5 to select the districts you want to apply to.
• Click the “Save” button at the bottom of the Step 5 page when finished.
• Click the "Pre-Qualifications Apps" button again, find the new application at the top of the list and click the “Submit” link under the "Actions" header.

First you will log on to the Quality Bidders site and select sign up. You will be directed to fill out basic information, such as company name, your name, email address etc. You create a password that you want to use. Agree to the Terms and Conditions and select Sign Up. You will then be sent an email instructing you to confirm your Sign up request. Once you select confirm, you will be directed back to the Quality Bidders site, where you select the Application tab and began to fill out the Questionnaire.

Go back to the main Quality Bidders site and select “Sign Up”. There will be a link on that screen that says "Didn't receive confirmation instructions?". You will be directed to enter in your email address, and then press “Resend Confirmation Instructions”. You will be sent an email with instructions on how to confirm your “Sign Up” request.

Here's some troubleshooting steps:

1. Review your personal junk/spam email folder.
2. Verify the email address provided is correct (make sure Quality Bidders has the correct email address).
3. To ensure you are receiving email notices from Quality Bidders, have your I.T. department add qualitybidders@colbitech.com, qbsupport@colbitech.com, and IP address 167.89.94.116 to your company’s "Whitelist".

Go back to the main Quality Bidders site and select Sign Up. There will be a link on that screen that says "Forgot your password". You will be directed to enter in your email address, and then press Send Reset Password Instructions. You will be sent an email with instructions how to re-set your password.

Access the tab labeled 'Contact' where you can get help by sending a message directly to the district you are interested in contacting.

Access the tab labeled 'Contact' where you can get help by sending a message directly to the technical support team.

The email address you sign up with is the account identifier used by Quality Bidders. We can change it in the database, but for security purposes, you will need to first verify access to the account by logging in yourself.

Here are the steps:

1. Login and click on the "My Account" button.
2. Add the new login email address to the "Notification email(s)" text box and press “Update”.
3. Email us to let us know you've made the change (and what the old email was) so we can activate the new email address.

Please, submit a Helpdesk ticket.

The closing of apps is part of an expedited process to save you time and effort when there are multiple applications that need corrections. For your convenience, only one application is being returned for corrections and the others you have submitted will be “Closed.” Once the returned application has been completely processed and we have submitted it to the district, we will notify you and then assist you in copying to apply to other districts.

Yes. The questionnaires and financial statements shall not be public records and shall not be open to public inspection. However, the names of contractors applying for pre-qualification status is subject to disclosure under Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code.

All data is stored on a set of secured servers in a protected environment that has passed industry standard security standards. All documents that are uploaded are encrypted and are only accessible by authorized personnel. All data passing through the Internet is encrypted during transit to prevent exposure to unapproved parties.