Brief ⁽¹⁾

HB 2225 would impose a cap on the amount the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) could recover from counties in relation to engineering services provided in connection with federal aid projects. The limit would be 10.0 percent of the county's share of the construction costs for a project.

Background

Conferees who testified in support of the bill included Representatives Larkin and Schwartz and two members of the Kansas County Highway Association.

Testimony from the Kansas County Highway Association indicated that KSA 68-402(e) which was repealed last session was part of the Comprehensive Transportation Plan and was important to Kansas counties. It was noted that when Kansas counties entered into contracts with KDOT for the development of federally aided road and bridge construction projects, 68-402(e) fixed the cost of county participation in the project's construction engineering costs at 10 percent of these costs. This was important because Kansas counties had little direct control of these costs.

The Association explained that repeal of 68-402(e) would allow KDOT to charge counties what the agency feels is appropriate for construction engineering costs on a project. This makes it difficult for counties to create accurate project budgets.

The Director of Engineering and Design, KDOT, provided a history of the engineering fees charged for counties for federal aid projects. He said repeal of KSA 68-402e was included in the 1999 CTP for the following reasons:

• In 1984 KDOT implemented a program to allow cities and counties to select consulting engineering firms to perform consulting engineering services on their projects. This decision allowed cities and counties to have more control over the costs of construction engineering and to select their own firms to perform the construction engineering. KDOT has also been able to perform construction engineering on state projects without increasing staff for this purpose; and
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• KSA 68-402e has never applied to cities and by repealing this statute projects of both cities and counties would be treated equally.

KDOT estimates that placing a limit on the recovery of engineering costs relating to projects of the type described in the bill would result in an additional $250,000 in expenditures from the State Highway Fund in FY 2002. This estimate was determined by reviewing actual projects and is a result of a loss recovery opportunity. Annual increased expenditures would fluctuate based on individual projects and program size.

There were no opponents.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext.cgi