Uniform Construction Cost Accounting Act (UCCAA)- Can your bidding software help you manage it?

Uniform Construction Cost Accounting Act (UCCAA)- Can your bidding software help you manage it?

You might be asking yourself, what is the Uniform Construction Cost Accounting Act, known as UCCAA or UPCCAA and even CUPCCAA- so many acronyms, but they all refer to the same Act.

“The Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act (Act), enacted in 1983 under Public Contract Code section 22000 et seq., allows local agencies to perform public project work of up to $60,000 with their own workforces if the agencies elect to follow the cost accounting procedures set forth in the Cost Accounting Policies and Procedures Manual by the California Uniform Construction Cost Accounting Commission.”  For more on the program, visit the State Controller’s website https://www.sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD-Local/CUCCAC_Manual.pdf

Adopting UCCAA comes with a few requirements when taking advantage of the program and using it to procure construction work under the threshold.

Agencies are required to:

1. Notice to contractors for work to be bid under the Act by either notifying trade journals or contractors directly or both.
2. When notifying contractors directly, agency will maintain a list of qualified contractors identified by category of work.
3. Notice to contractors shall describe the project in general terms, how to obtain more detail, and the time and place for submission of bids.
4. At least once per calendar year, agency shall establish a new or updated list of qualified contractors by sending a notice.
5. Agency will collect the following information:Contractor name and address (email) for notifications, phone number, type of work interested in, CLSB license type, and number.
6. Recommended item: track on each bid any vendor on UCCAA list

Managing all this in the paper environment is time and resource-consuming.  The easiest and most economical way is to tie it to an e-procurement system that is agile and flexible to handle any new plot twist to your procurement process.  PlanetBids has been helping agencies across the nation perform these sudden acrobatic moves with ease, and UCCAA requirements are just one such feat.

Tu Nguyen, Captial Projects Purchasing Manager at East Side Union High School District (District), implemented and managed the CUPCCAA program in 2013 through the PB System™.  The benefits “has helped streamline the bidding process for small projects and increased the likelihood that the bids will be from responsible contractors, it has also helped speed the award process of contracts, improve the timeliness of project completion, and reduced administrative costs.”

Using the PB System™ to announce formal and informal bids nearly every three weeks, the District can quickly post and advertise to contractors and trade journals.  “Additionally, we have been able to expand our pool of prequalified contractors, allowing us to work with new contractors. The Contract Management module has also helped us keep track of the numerous CUPCCAA contracts that we deal with, making retrieving records more easily accessible.”

To find out more about managing the CUPCCAA process, register today for one of our free upcoming webinars!

April 26^th, 2021                Register!

May 5^th, 2021                   Register!

May 11^th, 2021                 Register!

-  Ria Diaz, Manager of Client Services at PlanetBids