The director shall promulgate rules establishing competitive bidding procedures.
1. All equipment, supplies, or services procured by the department shall be purchased by a competitive bidding procedure. However, the director may exempt by regulation purchases of noncompetitive items and purchases in lots or quantities too small to be effectively purchased by competitive bidding. Preference shall be given to purchasing Iowa products and purchases from Iowa based businesses if the bids submitted therefor are comparable in price to bids submitted by out-of-state businesses and otherwise meet the required specifications. If the laws of another state mandate a percentage preference for businesses or products from that state and the effect of the preference is that bids of Iowa businesses or products that are otherwise low and responsive are not selected in the other state, the same percentage preference shall be applied to Iowa businesses and products when businesses or products from that other state are bid to supply Iowa requirements.
2. The director may also exempt the purchase of an item from a competitive bidding procedure when the director determines that the best interests of the state will be served due to an immediate or emergency need for the item.
3. The director shall have the power to contract for the purchase of items by the department. Contracts for the purchase of items shall be awarded on the basis of the lowest competent bid. Contracts not based on competitive bidding shall be awarded on the basis of bidder competence and reasonable price.
4. The director may refuse all bids on any item and institute a new bidding procedure.
5. The director shall establish by regulation the amount of security, if any, to accompany a bid or as a condition precedent to the awarding of any contract and the circumstances under which a security will be returned to the bidder or forfeited to the state.
6. The director shall promulgate rules providing a method for the various state agencies to file with the department of general services a list of those supplies, equipment, machines, and all items needed to properly perform their governmental duties and functions.
7. The director shall furnish a list of specifications, prices, and discounts of contract items to any governmental subdivision which shall be responsible for payment to the vendor under the terms and conditions outlined in the state contract.
8. The director shall establish rules providing that any state agency may, upon request, purchase directly from a vendor if the direct purchasing is as economical or more economical than purchasing through the department, or upon a showing that direct purchasing by the state agency would be in the best interests of the state due to an immediate or emergency need. The rules shall include a provision permitting a state agency to purchase directly from a vendor, on the agency's own authority, if the purchase will not exceed five thousand dollars and the purchase will contribute to the agency complying with or exceeding the targeted small business procurement goals under sections 73.15 through 73.21.
Any member of the executive council may bring before the council for review a decision of the director granting a state agency request for direct purchasing. The executive council shall hear and review the director's decision in the same manner as an appeal filed by an aggrieved bidder, except that the three-day period for filing for review shall not apply.
9. When the estimated total cost of construction, erection, demolition, alteration or repair of a public improvement exceeds twenty-five thousand dollars, the department shall advertise for bids on the proposed improvement by two publications in a newspaper published in the county in which the work is to be done. The first advertisement for bids shall be not less than fifteen days prior to the date set for receiving bids. The department shall let the work to the lowest responsible bidder submitting a sealed proposal. However, if the department considers the bids received not to be acceptable, all bids may be rejected and new bids requested. A bid shall be accompanied, in a separate envelope, by a deposit of money or a certified check or credit union certified share draft in an amount to be named in the advertisement for bids as security that the bidder will enter into a contract for the doing of the work. The department shall fix the bid security in an amount equal to at least five percent, but not more than ten percent of the estimated total cost of the work. The checks, share drafts or deposits of money of the unsuccessful bidders shall be returned as soon as the successful bidder is determined, and the check, share draft or deposit of money of the successful bidder shall be returned upon execution of the contract documents. This section does not apply to the construction, erection, demolition, alteration or repair of a public improvement when the contracting procedure for the doing of the work is provided for in another provision of law.
10. The state and its political subdivisions shall give preference to purchasing Iowa products and purchasing from Iowa based businesses if the bids submitted are comparable in price to those submitted by other bidders and meet the required specifications.
11. The director shall adopt rules which require that each bid received for the purchase of items purchased by the department includes a product content statement which provides the percentage of the content of the item which is reclaimed material.
12. The director shall require that as a condition of a contract for the purchase of items by the department, the person submitting the proposed contract for purchase of items shall receive information regarding the availability of an on-site, nonregulatory, review of waste management of the facility of the person submitting the proposed contract by the small business assistance center for the safe and economic management of solid waste and hazardous substances at the university of northern Iowa.
13. The director shall review and, where necessary, revise specifications used by state agencies to procure products including but not limited to lubricating oils, retread tires, building insulation materials, and recovered materials from waste tires to ensure that the specifications allow the procurement of items containing recovered materials. Specifications shall be revised if they restrict the use of alternative materials, exclude recovered materials, or require performance standards which exclude items containing recovered materials unless the agency seeking the item can document that the use of recovered materials will hamper the intended use of the item.
14. A bidder awarded a state construction contract shall disclose the names of all subcontractors, who will work on the project being bid, within forty-eight hours after the award of the contract.
If a subcontractor named by a bidder awarded a state construction contract is replaced, or if the cost of work to be done by a subcontractor is reduced, the bidder shall disclose the name of the new subcontractor or the amount of the reduced cost.
[R60, § 2169; C73, § 121; C97, § 166; S13, § 166, 167; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, § 297, 298; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, § 19.20, 19.21; C73, § 19B.6; C75, 77, 79, 81, § 18.6]
84 Acts, ch 1301, § 12; 86 Acts, ch 1132, § 2; 86 Acts, ch 1245, § 304, 1974; 89 Acts, ch 272, § 19; 90 Acts, ch 1161, §1; 94 Acts, ch 1076, §4
Referred to in § 18.12, 204.4, 216B.3, 262.9, 303.9, 307.21
Preferences; see also chapter 73, §73A.21
Iowa General Assembly
Search: Iowa Code 1997
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