This legislation prohibits counties from entering into any nondisclosure agreements with other parties. Any offers, incentives, terms or conditions would be required to be disclosed without delay. Any citizen of the state may sue to enforce this law and compel the disclosure of the information in the agreement. ACCG believes it is important preserve project and prospect confidentiality prior to the announcement of a project.   

This legislation requires counties to include a stipulation in "renovation" contracts that only Georgia forest products may be used if they are available.  That requirement currently exists on contracts for constructing, adding to, and repairing facilities.     

The legislation also requires the state to allow the use of Georgia forest products certified through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the American Tree Farm System and the Forest Stewardship Council whenever "green building standards" (i.e., a system or tool to rate the environmental efficiency and sustainability of the design, construction, operation and maintenance of a building) are applied for new construction, operations, repair or renovation of any state building."

This legislation authorizes the sheriff, tax commissioner, superior court clerk and probate judge ("constitutional officers") to develop their own credit card or purchasing card (p-card) policy and user agreement, rather than being issued one by the county.  The constitutional officers will be required to develop their own specific guidelines for the use of credit cards or p-cards by their department beginning on July 1, 2016.  The policy must designate the officials or employees in the constitutional officer's department who are authorized to use a credit card or p-card, specify a user agreement and transaction limits for the use of the card, include a description of authorized and unauthorized purchases, designate a credit card/p-card administrator, establish a process for auditing and reviewing the purchases made with the cards and outline procedures for addressing a violation of the credit card/p-card policies.  A copy of the specific policies promulgated by each constitutional officer must be filed with the board of commissioners. 

The ordinances, policies, procedures and user agreements with the constitutional officers adopted in 2015 to comply with the original law need to be examined and amended as necessary to remove the constitutional officers.    

A provision requiring counties to name all of its employees granted p-cards and credit cards in their local ordinance was removed from the bill before final passage.     

This legislation creates the Partnership for Public Facilities and Infrastructure Act which creates a framework by which local governments have the option to use for public-private partnership (P3) projects on buildings as well as for accepting and processing unsolicited bids for such projects.

County Impact:  This legislation provides a tool for local governments who wish to accept unsolicited bids for certain projects including a process for charging to review such bids and giving the option to deny the bid for any reason. It also establishes a framework for using public-private partnerships on vertical construction projects.

This legislation mandates that the state obtain certification on every contract over $1,000 for construction, services, supplies or information technology that the other party does not presently conduct a boycott of Israel.

It had earlier applied to city and county contracts as well; however, that language was stripped out of the bill in House Committee.    

This legislation prohibits businesses (as well as their affiliated entities, executive employees, and employees whose compensation is determined by the award of government contracts) from making campaign contributions to state and local elected officials or candidates for offices that are responsible for awarding the contract to the business. 

Specifically, businesses with more than $50,000 per year in contracts with counties, cities, school boards and local authorities may not make contributions to any candidate or campaign committee of an official (or individual seeking office) responsible for awarding contracts. The prohibition lasts for the term of office of an incumbent officeholder or for two years following the expiration/termination of the contract, whichever is longer. Any business that violates this provision three or more times within three years will have all of their contracts with the county and the state voided.

Similarly, businesses (as well as affiliated entities and affiliated individuals) with a total of pending bids and offers over $50,000 to counties (or the total of existing contracts with the state and pending bids and offers to counties is over $50,000) are prohibited from making contributions to any candidate (or their campaign committee) whose office is responsible for awarding the contract for which the bid or offer was submitted.

The county may void a contract with any business that violates either of these provisions related to donations to local officials or candidates within 90 days of the violation.  Any business that violates the prohibition against making contributions to state officials or candidates three or more times within a three year period may not respond to any county invitation to bid or request for proposal.

Any candidate or campaign committee that received a contribution in violation of this law must pay the state the amount of the contribution illegally made.

 This legislation allows superior court clerks to use a vendor rather than the Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority to back up records.