Clark County School District Construction: Prequalification, Bonds and Insurance

The District's Contractor Pre-qualifications page says applications are taken on a rolling basis and reviewed by a three-person panel, and that contractors must be deemed prequalified before any mandatory pre-bid conference. The page adds that prequalification status is good for up to two years. The linked application is marked Rev Jan 2025, so check that the form in hand is current before filing.

The written criteria, dated December 2024, ask for three comparable projects in each category a firm applies for, a written safety program, Nevada workers' compensation and proof of the insurance and bonding described below. The surety must appear on the U.S. Treasury's Circular 570 list, and the criteria cap a firm's prequalification at the surety's underwriting limit. A contractor turned down can appeal to the Board within 10 days.

NRS 338.1377 lists the kinds of criteria local governments may use to qualify bidders, including whether the applicant has the ability to obtain the necessary bonding for the work, along with insurance, safety programs, past performance and bankruptcy history. Bonding capacity therefore shapes which CCSD projects a firm can be prequalified to bid, and that capacity is set by the surety's own underwriting of the firm's financial statements, work on hand and indemnity. The prequalification decision belongs to the District; a broker can help assemble surety and insurance evidence but cannot prequalify a firm.

The prequalification criteria list the coverage a firm has to show to be approved. These are the minimums stated in that document; the insurance article of each project's conformed General Conditions controls the final requirement and can add coverage or raise limits.

The April 2024 bid template tells bidders to meet all insurance requirements in Article 11 of Document 00 72 00, the District's conformed AIA A201 General Conditions. That article is where additional insured wording, waiver of subrogation, primary and noncontributory terms and any owner-controlled or contractor-controlled insurance program would appear. We did not read Article 11, so this page does not state those terms. Read them in each solicitation and match the endorsements on the general liability, auto and umbrella policies to the exact wording before bid.

• Commercial general liability: $1,000,000, with $10,000 per-person medical payments
• Automobile liability: $1,000,000
• Umbrella or excess liability: not less than $5,000,000 on projects over $100,000; at the prequalification stage a letter from the insurer can be accepted
• Workers' compensation: Nevada coverage
• Insurer standard: A.M. Best rating of A- or better, Financial Size Category VIII or larger, licensed in Nevada

The December 2024 criteria state that all projects over $50,000 require performance and payment bonds equal to 100 percent of the contract amount. That is a District rule layered on top of NRS 339.025, which requires bonds only on contracts over $100,000 and sets a 50 percent floor. A surety quoting CCSD work should be told the bonds run at the full contract amount.

The District's April 2024 pre-bid agenda for formal bids over $100,000 says bid security can be a bid bond or a certified check of no less than 5 percent, and that performance and payment bonds are due within four working days of the Notice of Award. That window is short, so the surety's approval and the bond forms need to be lined up before bid day rather than after award.

The same agenda requires subcontractors whose contracts exceed $250,000 to give the general contractor performance and payment bonds, each at 100 percent. That flows bonding down to the larger trades on a school job, and a mechanical, electrical or concrete subcontractor that has not bonded before may need to establish surety credit early. Some general contractors use subcontractor default insurance on private work; on CCSD projects the agenda's bond requirement still applies to subcontracts over that threshold.

We did not read the retention clause in a CCSD contract, so this section sets out the statute that governs Nevada public bodies, including the District. Under NRS 338.515, a public body pays progress payments within 30 days after it receives the progress bill, paying 95 percent and withholding 5 percent as retainage until 50 percent of the work has been performed.

After the halfway point, if the public body finds satisfactory progress, it may pay the remaining progress payments without additional retainage and may release retainage already held. If it keeps withholding, it may hold no more than 2.5 percent of any progress payment and must first pay the contractor half of the retainage already withheld, unless it is also withholding for a deficiency under NRS 338.525, in which case the cap is 5 percent. The public body pays quarterly interest on amounts withheld. Under NRS 338.520, outstanding payments, including retainage, are due within 30 days after the owner occupies or begins using the work, or a notice of completion is recorded, in proportion to the part occupied.

The rules flow down. NRS 338.555 lets the prime withhold no more than 5 percent from a subcontractor's progress payment before the subcontract work is half done, and NRS 338.550 requires the prime to pay subcontractors and suppliers their share within 10 days after receiving payment. Subcontract forms carrying a 10 percent retention clause need to change for District work.

NRS 338.080 exempts public works with an estimated cost under $100,000 from the prevailing wage provisions, and the statute bars splitting a unit of the project from the total to get under that line. The District's bid template applies prevailing wage at $100,000 and up and calls for certified payroll through LCPtracker, so payroll reporting has to be set up for the prime and every subcontractor on site.

The same template says bids are submitted through e-Builder and held for 60 days, and it leaves liquidated damages blank to be set on each project. A 60-day hold means the surety and the bidder's insurers are committing to pricing and capacity for two months; the liquidated damages figure in the final documents affects how the surety views schedule risk on a tight summer school job.

Delivery method also varies. NRS 338.1711 allows a public body to contract with a design-build team, for a discrete project only above $5,000,000. Which method the District uses, and any different bond or insurance terms that come with it, is set in each solicitation.

Some school sites sit in unincorporated Clark County, and work on or next to them can touch County dust control, grading and right-of-way rules. Those permits, and any bond or deposit the County requires for them, come from the County under its own code and are separate from the District's contract bonds. A contractor can owe a 100 percent performance and payment bond to the District and still need County permit security on the same site.

Keeping the two tracks apart in the bid budget avoids a common surprise: a District award that triggers County permits the estimate did not price, with their own security and insurance certificates.

The District's 2015 CIP page estimates that the bond program will provide $4.1 billion over 10 years for the 2015 Capital Improvement Program, funded by bonding authority under Senate Bill 119 and Senate Bill 207 of the 2015 Legislature. The page is undated and reports enrollment as of April 1, 2016, so check the District's current capital plan for the projects now being bid.

A program of that size typically puts several new schools, replacements and modernizations in front of the same pool of prequalified contractors, which is one reason bonding capacity and the two-year prequalification cycle tend to drive which firms can compete.