By Bryan Kelley on January 25, 2017

Contractors hoping to take advantage of incoming infrastructure spending should implement False Claims Act protections now. While promises made during a presidential campaign can’t always be taken to the bank, the construction industry is nonetheless preparing for a rise in federally-funded projects based on the Trump campaign’s promise of increased infrastructure spending.  Contractors taking on this work… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on June 28, 2016

The OSE gave its form SE-210 – Invitation for Professional Services – a facelift in the 2015 update of the OSE Manual. Take a look at the old form, compared to the new version. While the appearance of SE-210 is improved, there aren’t a whole lot of substantive changes. Mainly, they’ve added information to call… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on June 20, 2016

It’s pretty much business as usual under the newly updated Chapter 7 in the Office of State Engineer’s (“OSE”) Manual for the Planning and Execution of State Permanent Improvements Part II, which sets out the contract administration procedures for traditional design-bid-build projects. With a few exceptions, basic contract administration remains the same as under the previous… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on June 10, 2016

The State Engineer has updated the SE-225 Conditions of Service to be used with the AIA B101-2007 Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect. Formerly titled “Article 12 – Other Conditions or Services,” the New SE-225 has a few significant changes from its predecessor document. The first and most significant change is that SE-225 completely… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on June 3, 2016

Back in 2008, the South Carolina legislature enacted changes to the South Carolina Consolidated Procurement Code. These changes allowed state agencies the use of additional project delivery methods for state construction projects including design-build, design-builder-operate and maintain, design-builder-finance-operate and maintain, and construction management at-risk.  (2008 S.C. Acts 174).  The State Fiscal Accountability Authority (formerly the… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on May 24, 2016

In the Office of State Engineer’s (“OSE”) newly released 2015 Edition of the OSE Manual for the Planning and Execution of State Permanent Improvements Part II, Rev. 1/2016, the State Engineer adopts 30 new forms for use in the bidding and administration of indefinite delivery contracts (“IDC”). IDC’s are those contracts for professional services or… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on May 16, 2016

When I learned Chapter 6 in the Office of State Engineer’s Manual for the Planning and Execution of State Permanent Improvements Part II went from 20 pages in the 2011 edition to 17 pages in the 2015 edition, I expected to see significant changes between the two editions. However, the changes are only skin deep,… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on May 11, 2016

How many of you have had projects where there are quite a few smaller change order requests but the architect wants to wait until the end of the project to write one big change order to cover everything at once? (Yeah, we all know it is not supposed to be done that way, but it… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on May 9, 2016

The State Engineer has to approve the demolition of any state-owned building or other improvement to real property. In 2011, the OSE Manual required the agency to provide four pieces of information when the agency requests approval for demolition. In the 2015 OSE Manual update, the necessary information has doubled. Previously the agency had to… Read more

By Leslie Sullivan on May 5, 2016

This post is the first in a series of posts by Elmore Goldsmith attorney Leslie Sullivan, which will examine recent changes to the 2015 edition of the South Carolina Manual for Planning and Execution of State Permanent Improvements.  The manual can be found in its entirety here. I started my career as an on-site manager for… Read more