Among the dozens of bills on its plate Wednesday, the Wisconsin Senate will be taking up Legislation that would make approvals of state projects easier.
With the encouragement of various construction groups and the UW System, state lawmakers could vote as early as this month on a bill meant to ease the way for approvals of state building projects.
Even while scrapping much of Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to give the University of Wisconsin System more autonomy from state government, lawmakers want to keep intact a proposal that would make it easier to get certain university building projects underway.
An Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin letter is bringing to light a discrepancy between the surety-bonding coverage construction companies can get and the maximum dollar amount of projects the state will let them undertake.
Even though the state’s new single-prime contracting system of managing construction projects has taken effect, industry officials say some fundamental questions still need answers.
In signing the state’s 2013-15 budget bill Sunday, Gov. Scott Walker left unchanged a tax increase that is estimated to cost construction companies and other heavy users of the state’s unemployment fund millions of dollars in the coming years.
The state Assembly approved an amendment Wednesday to the state budget that would slightly alter proposals to make single-prime contracting the default method of awarding state building contracts and to allow state assets to be put up for sale, among other things.
The state’s budget committee voted Thursday to make single-prime contracting the state’s default method of awarding and overseeing most construction projects.
It’s easy to understand why Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to change Wisconsin’s primary method of awarding and overseeing state construction projects has been the subject of little debate among lawmakers.