The bill establishes mechanisms to allow public-private-partnerships for various building and highway infrastructure projects in New Jersey. Specifically, the bill would allow for a public body (State, County or Municipality) to accept solicited, or unsolicited proposals through public/private business arrangements between the public body and one or more private entities. The public body would be authorized to utilize private capital financing, through the use of a public-private-partnership, to fund viable projects while encouraging competition and further delivering cost effective means of financing construction projects in NJ.
Critical Components of Legislation
- Permissive contracting tool that further amends public contracting statues to allow the use of P-3’s.
- Requires that contractors engaged in a public-private-partnership obtain NJ-DOLWD contractor registration, NJ-DPMC or NJ-DOT classification and/or prequalification.
- Creates two-tier project development process which 1). Allows the State or any of its instrumentalities to solicit private businesses to engage in delivering building and highway infrastructure projects through a public-private-partnership, and 2). Allows the State or any of its instrumentalities, Counties and Municipalities to utilize a lease/purchase modified public-private-partnership model to finance smaller-scale projects over a longer duration.
- Requires project approval and oversight by the State.
- Statute references of passed laws (Misclassification Law, Public Bond Act, etc.).
- $10M. Project threshold for public body to utilize P-3 delivery method.
- “lock-box” account language to ensure private financing for the project is secured.
- Prohibits contractors from having financial stake in projects they’re engaged on.
- Prohibits “Bundling” of P-3 projects.
