The 2018 Virginia General Assembly session adjourned “sine die” on Saturday, March 10. While legislators completed work on a number of important bills this year, unfortunately, they were not able to reach an agreement on the budget bill. The House and Senate budgets differ by about $600 million, due in large part to the fact that the House budget includes the expansion of Medicaid and the Senate version does not.
Governor Northam called a special session on April 11 for legislators to complete their work on the budget. Virginia’s current budget expires on June 30. AIA Virginia will monitor the Special Session of the General Assembly and report updates as appropriate.
Thank you for your continuous outreach efforts to your respective legislators of the General Assembly. Our work is not complete. Out of session, AIA Virginia will continue to formulate new relationships and strengthen existing relationships with two goals:
To position architects as vital contributors to our built environment
To advocate for the profession
Please, please, please consider making a donation to the AIA Virginia PAC
The goal for this year is to raise $15,000. Last year we raised approximately $6,000. From $5 to $500 to $5,000, every contribution helps. Shout out to AIA Hampton Roads for having 100% PAC participation at the Board of Directors level!
For a more detailed analysis of the referenced bills we tracked this session, click here. If you have any questions, please feel free to submit them to Corey Clayborne, AIA at cclayborne@aiava.org
The Joint Legislative Committee had to vet approximately 3,000 total bills to extract the relevant ones to our profession. Tuesday, February 13 marked the date of “Bill crossover” in the General Assembly. This is the day when bills must pass one house or the other or die for the session. As such, the “ACTIVE” list has been significantly reduced and many of those bills are “DEAD” for the session.
KEY VICTORIES
SB 188 – Provides that for competitive negotiation of professional services, a public body may conduct negotiations simultaneously with the top two ranked offerors.
We successfully got architectural and engineering services removed from the bill.
ACTIVE
HB 97 – Virginia Public Procurement Act; methods of procurement, single or term contracts
This bill allows for single or term contracts for professional services without requiring competitive negotiation, provided the aggregate or the sum of all phases is not expected to exceed $80,000. This change increased the limit in current law by $20,000.
MONITOR
SB 318 – Small Business and Supplier Diversity, Department of; implementation of certification programs
This bill would change the definition of small business, beginning July 1, 2019, to meet the small business size established by the regulations of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
There were a number of bills that were proposed that attempted to codify Governor Terry McAuliffe’s Executive Order 20 (EO-20). EO-20 sets a 42% goal for participation by Small, Women and Minority Businesses (SWaM) in public contracts. With the potential change coming regarding the definition of “small” in Virginia, public entities may face increasing challenges in attempting to meet this goal for the procurement of architecture and engineering services.In meeting these goals, it is of paramount importance that the most qualified firms are selected. These two goals are not mutually exclusive. As such, we have requested a meeting with the Governor to discuss how we can work collaboratively to further those opportunities.
For a more detailed analysis of bills we are actively engaged with, bills we are monitoring, or to see bills that we were interested in but have died in session, click here.
tl;dr: Historic Tax Credits are capped for 2 years, Construction Management has some new rules; Give to the PAC.
Like so much in the political scene these days, the 2017 General Assembly session has been a bit unusual. As the session came to a close a few days ago, here’s where things ended up.
Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits
It was a wild ride. What started last summer with a subcommittee evaluating the effectiveness of the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit, suddenly became a surprise $5M/tax payer cap in the Governor’s budget, and finally culminated in legislation that would have eliminated the tax credit altogether. With help from members, a coalition of supporters, and even Virginia’s first lady, we managed to walk the elimination back to the $5M/tax payer cap with a 2-year sunset. This result is certainly not what we hoped for at the beginning of the session, but we’ve managed to preserve the credit (for now).
We’ll be working between sessions to evaluate and share the results of several studies underway and to educate legislators about the benefits of the credit.
Procurement Issues surrounding public procurement usually take the bulk of our time, but this year we didn’t have quite as many battles to fight in this arena. We kept a close watch on a number of bills but stayed out the fray for the most part as other entities duked it out.
HB2366 and its Senate version SB1129 regarding the use of Construction Management contracts have been adopted.
HB1693 has passed and is waiting on the governor’s signature. In contracts for architectural and engineering services relating to multiple construction projects, this bill increased the fee for any single project from $100,000 to $150,000.
SB1508 added language to include certain school divisions under the exception from the $100,000 single-project fee limit for architectural and professional engineering term contracts and the $ 1 million annual aggregate total of all such projects. Under the bill, the school divisions may pay a single-project fee of up to $2.5 million and an annual aggregate of $6 million. Certain localities already enjoy this exception.
There was some movement on the definition of small businesses, though minor. HB1858 would allow for SWaM businesses certified at the federal level (or some other certification process comparable to Virginia’s) to be certified in the Commonwealth. I include this under the procurement category because we’ve been watching small business definitions carefully. If Virginia’s small business definition for architecture firms changes, it could have a substantial impact on Qualifications Based Selection because of Executive Order 20 and its requirement to exceed an expenditure goal of 42% with small businesses.
Regulation
Lots of bills that could impact the regulatory environment showed up this year. They fell primarily into 2 different categories — legislation related to the Administrative Process Act and legislation related to regulatory boards.
Administrative Process Act These bills were mostly aimed at reducing regulatory burden.
HB1731 requires the Joint Commission on Administrative Rules (on a yet-to-be-determined schedule) to conduct an ongoing review of the exemptions authorized by the Administrative Process Act.
HB1790 requires agencies to develop regulations in the least burdensome and intrusive manner possible. The bill calls for each agency to establish a schedule that provides for the annual review of at least 10 percent of an agency’s regulations.
HB1943 and its Senate companion, SB1431, require the Dept. of Planning and Budget to revise and reissue its economic impact analysis in certain circumstances.
SJ295 grants to the General Assembly the authority to review any administrative rule to ensure it is consistent with the legislative intent.
Board Regulation
Of all the bills related to the Regulatory Board that we were monitoring, none passed except for SB1374 which added an engineer to the board for contractors. The handful of bills that would have provided some additional oversight for the board all died. The bill that would have deregulated Landscape Architects and Certified Interior Designers failed, as did proposed regulation of land surveyor photogrammetrists.
Thank you
I hope you’ll join me in thanking Kenney Payne, AIA; Lynden Garland, AIA; Robert Burns, AIA and Ed Gillikin, AIA, who gave countless hours in support of our efforts. In addition, our friends with ACEC Virginia, the AIA Virginia Government Affairs Advisory Council and GIA Committee, and our legislative counsel with Williams Mullen were invaluable.
Obligatory PAC Appeal
No session wrap-up would be complete without an appeal to support the AIA Virginia PAC.
Our policy makers and politicians are stewards of our built infrastructure. They make decisions about the built world everyday — from funding, to planning, to preserving, to demolition — but most of them aren’t experts in design and planning. PAC money doesn’t buy influence, but it DOES help us get a seat at the table, so we can educate policy-makers on issues that are important to us. Give to the PAC today.
Today is the mid-point of the 2017 General Assembly session, known as “crossover.” At this point, each house of the legislature can only consider bills passed by the other house. [Translation: No new bills and any bills that haven’t been heard yet are dead for the session.]
Here’s where things stand now:
Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits — Two bills survive: HB2460 and SB1034. Both bills cap the credit at $5M per taxpayer (as does the Governor’s budget). We were successful in getting the Senate bill amended to include a one-year sunset provision. Because of Governor’s budget already assumed this $5M cap and its related savings, we’re told that this is our best case scenario in this incredibly tight budget year.
Our goal now is to visit with members of the House side (who will be hearing SB1034 in the coming weeks) to ask that they don’t strip our amendment out. The Senate is expected to automatically add our amendment to HB2460. Our message to the House committee members will be that we appreciate the prudent measures that legislators are taking regarding the budget and we support a one-year sunset on the $5M cap. We’re asking that they not make the cap permanent until we receive the results of the studies that are currently underway. These studies will evaluate the credit’s ROI to the Commonwealth and are expected to be complete by mid-summer.
We’ll be meeting with the following legislators who sit on the House Finance Subcommittee 3 this week:
If you’re able to join me in meetings on Wednesday or Thursday, please contact me as soon as possible at rgeorge@aiava.org. Even if your legislator isn’t listed above, please consider reaching out to express support for a one-year sunset on the cap in SB1034 and HB2460. If you have a personal story about how the current uncertainty regarding the cap has caused funders to pull back on projects, please contact me and/or share it with your legislator. Feel free to call me at (804) 237-1768 if you’d like to talk about the credit a bit before reaching out to your legislator.
Procurement – We’re monitoring SB1129 which deals with the use of construction management contracts.
And, though we haven’t taken a position on Virginia’s definitions for small businesses, we’re watching SB1334 very closely. If Virginia’s small business definition for architecture firms changes, it could have a substantial impact on Qualifications Based Selection (QBS) because of Executive Order 20 and its requirement to exceed an expenditure goal of 42% with small businesses.
Regulation — Though nearly a dozen have died, we continue to monitor several bills that relate to the regulatory environment.
SB1449 seeks to address general concerns about overregulation, however (as one observer put it), the bills add another state division and another commission, essentially creating more red tape. We’re not taking a position but will watch to see that amendments don’t take us in a bad direction.
