GENERAL
Partial pay estimates are prepared by the Resident Engineer’s office at least once each month if sufficient work has been performed.
ESTIMATE PERIOD
The Resident Engineer establishes the date of the end of the estimate period to be either the
7th, 15th, 22nd, or last day of each month. The Resident Engineer will alternately assign these dates to each new project to ensure an equal distribution of estimate ending periods. The Resident Engineer
should not deviate from the required alternate assignment of dates.
ALLOWABLE PREPARATION TIME
Preparation of partial pay estimates in a timely manner is very important and it is the Resident Engineer’s responsibility to ensure that this work is given a high priority. All estimates should be processed
within five work days after the end of the estimate period.
The estimate for completed work should always be processed for payment at the earliest practical time.
Estimates should not be delayed at the Contractor’s request for late arrival of material payment documents, for inclusion of pay item work performed after the estimate ending period, such as a bridge deck pour, or for any other reason. Payment for such items can be made on the next regular or mid-period partial payment, as applicable.
MID-PERIOD PARTIAL PAYMENTS
Article 109-4 of the Specifications provides that partial payments may be made twice each month if, in the judgment of the Engineer, the amount of work performed is sufficient to warrant such payment. This decision will be made by the Resident Engineer. As a general rule, if the Contractor requests an additional estimate and the amount due for half a month exceeds
$150,000, the request should be approved. The amount due may consist partially or solely of material payment requests. However, estimates prepared in the middle of the regular estimate period should not include all items of work that have been performed, but only those items that represent a significant payment to the Contractor. No more than ten pay items would typically be included in such an estimate which should allow it to be processed within two work days after the mid-period date.
INSUFFICIENT WORK FOR PAYMENT
If, after the estimate is compiled and generated, the amount of work is less than
$10,000 enter a comment to that effect in the Comment box,
but do not Forward the estimate.
The Resident Engineer should notify the Contractor in writing that an estimate will not be processed for an estimate period when the amount of work performed during the period is less than $10,000 or when the amount of anticipated liquidated damages to be withheld exceeds the amount due on the estimate. A copy of this notification should be forwarded to the State Construction Engineer and the Division Engineer.
CERTIFIED PAYROLLS
For those projects that contractually require the Contractor to submit certified payrolls, the partial pay estimate should not be processed until all required payrolls and/or supplemental payrolls have been received and checked by the Resident Engineer’s office. The required payrolls for a particular estimate are those payrolls through the week ending no earlier than four weeks prior to the end of the partial pay period.
Seven days prior to the end of the estimate period, the Resident Engineer should review the submitted payrolls and advise the Contractor in writing of any needed payrolls or supplemental payrolls and/or any errors found in the payrolls. If the Resident Engineer lacks any required payroll document such that the estimate must be retained until their receipt, the Contractor should be notified immediately in writing. Such notification should state why the estimate is being retained and what documents are necessary in order for the estimate to be processed. A copy of this notification should be sent to the State Construction Engineer and Division Engineer. Although the estimate must be retained until receipt of information from the Contractor, the estimate should still be entered into HiCAMS and generated, but not forwarded until the payrolls are in order.
Additional information regarding certified payrolls, the FHWA, and the Davis Bacon Act may be found in Division 1 of the Construction Manual under
Article 107-22 Wages and Conditions of Employment.
Note: There are circumstances where an exception to this policy of retaining a partial pay estimate due to lack of required payroll documents can be made by the Division Engineer. See the following example.
Example:
Suppose that a Subcontractor were to default on his subcontract agreement with the prime Contractor and refuse to submit his remaining payrolls prior to termination. In such an instance it would be permissible to document the circumstances and post the estimate without the required payrolls.
The Division Engineer should always be consulted if there are compelling reasons to process an estimate but all required documents are not available from the Contractor.
MATERIALS RECEIVED
The Resident Engineer should perform reviews of the material received reports to ensure the quantities of material received is in line with the quantities paid and that all appropriate documentation has been submitted for the materials in accordance with the
Minimum Sampling Guide. If any information is missing, the Resident Engineer should notify the contractor in writing of the specific information needed.
ESTIMATE PROCESSING PROCEDURES
The Resident Engineer should obtain a printout from the HiCAMS Standard Reports list titled “Contract Line Item Quantity Report” prior to the end of the estimate period. This printout should serve as a worksheet on which current quantities calculated by the Resident Engineer’s staff can be listed. This worksheet should be used as a guide when entering quantities and references in HiCAMS. See
Documentation of Partial Pay Estimates in this section of the Manual.
Enter quantities and prepayments, review times, and generate the estimate following the procedures outlined in the User Guide. Any pertinent remarks pertaining to the estimate that are desired to show on the estimate cover page should be entered in the Remarks block of the Generate Estimates screen. These might include statements such as “Materials Estimate Only”, “Estimate Submitted to Correct Quantities”, or “Anticipated Liquidated Damages”.
In addition, the contractual overrun should be computed and listed in the remarks block if the Percent Complete calculated by HiCAMS is 10 percent or more behind the % Complete by Progress Chart. The contractual overrun or underrun also should be computed and listed here if the percent of contract time elapsed exceeds the Percent Complete by more than 15 percent. The contractual overrun is computed in accordance with
Subarticle 108-10(B)1 of the Specifications.
REVIEW ESTIMATE SCREEN
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% Complete by Progress Chart: On the Review Estimates screen, General tab, enter % Complete by Progress Chart. This percent complete is obtained from the approved progress schedule. This is the percentage complete by a particular estimate date as anticipated by the Contractor. Do not include a percent symbol.
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Overrun/Underrun to Date: This is the dollar amount of overrun or underrun of quantities through the estimate period. An overrun or underrun of an item can occur on any portion of the work and must be identified at the time it occurs. The overrun or underrun is a result of the comparison of the original estimated or plan quantity and the actual quantity required to perform the item of work. For instance, if the length of a line of storm drainage or width of a concrete drive varies from what is shown on the plans, the overrun or underrun must be shown at the time it occurs even though the contract item has not been completed and does not exceed the original or plan estimated quantity. The dollar amount of overrun or underrun must be kept current as the work progresses.
Examples:
128 feet of
24 inch R.C. pipe were placed during the estimate period. However, plan quantities show
136 feet of 24 inch R.C. pipe were required to complete this portion of the work. This would constitute an underrun on that date of 8 feet of
24 inch R.C. pipe.
The plan quantities include
10,000 cubic yards of borrow excavation through the balance points completed. However, according to the best estimate available,
15,000 cubic yards of borrow have been placed. This would constitute an overrun on that date of 5,000 cubic yards of borrow.
The amount of overrun or underrun to be placed in the
Overrun/Underrun to Date is the
fiscal overrun or underrun. The fiscal overrun or underrun is computed by combining overruns and underruns for all items of work performed to date. Supplemental agreement items included on the estimate also are used in the computation of the overrun or underrun.
The items listed in
Article 108-10(B)1 of the Specifications are not excluded in the computation of this percentage. The overrun or underrun figure must be entered in order for the system to accurately calculate the
Percent Complete.
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Open to Traffic Date: If the project is new construction, or traffic is detoured off site, enter the date the project is expected to be, or has been, opened to traffic. If traffic is maintained through the project or detoured on site, leave blank.
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Estimated Completion Date: This is the date that the Resident Engineer anticipates when all work required in the contract will be complete.
OPEN ISSUES
The Resident Engineer should review the Open Issues tab located on the Review Estimates window, to check for any “open issues” on contracts prior to sending a partial or final estimate to the Construction Unit. An open issue is an outstanding item related to contract administration and material acceptance that may require action by users. It is important that the Open Issues tab is reviewed because the outstanding item may result in the assessment of penalties and action should be taken in a timely manner as the penalty may have cost implications to the prime contractor, subcontractors or material suppliers. The Open Issues tab has a “Go To“ Button to allow easy and direct navigation to the source of the issue, where the corrective action can be performed.
The following are procedures that should be implemented concerning the processing of pay reductions:
- Review the Open Issues tab for each contract a minimum of one a month as part of the monthly estimating processing.
- Take appropriate action on all open issues. Action should be timely enough that any penalty assessment can be included on the partial estimate covering the period in which the work was performed.
- Notify the prime contractor in writing of any penalties that will be assessed on the partial pay estimate.
- Notify the prime contractor in writing of any pending pay adjustments that cannot be completed prior to processing of the partial pay estimate due to investigations. Investigations should be completed within
30 days and a follow up letter sent providing formal disposition of the issue.
Additional information regarding the Open Issues Tab can be found in the User Guide “Review Estimates-Open Issues Tab.” The User Guide can be accessed from the HiCAMS Help menu.
DAMAGES TAB (ANTICIPATED LIQUIDATED DAMAGES)
The Resident Engineer should determine each estimate period if liquidated damages are anticipated. Liquidated damages are assessable whenever work is not completed by the completion date or completion time specified in the contract. Anticipated liquidated damages may be assessed when it is apparent that work will not be completed by the contract completion date or time.
The Resident Engineer should review the contract completion date and any intermediate completion dates or times included in the contract to determine if anticipated liquidated damages should be withheld.
Extensions or anticipated extensions of contract time should be considered. Additional contract time will only be allowed as specified in
Subarticle 108-10(B) of the Specifications. Pro rata time extensions are based on contractual overruns as computed in
Subarticle 108-10(B)1. A comment regarding the assessment of anticipated liquidated damages should be included in the
Estimate Contract Time Comment window of any contract time for which damages are anticipated.
As there is no longer retainage on contracts, it is essential that the Resident Engineer make accurate assessments of anticipated liquidated damages on all estimates.
SUBMITTING PARTIAL PAY ESTIMATES
After the Review Estimates screen has been updated, the estimate should be forwarded to the Construction Unit for review. The Construction Unit will review the estimate the same day or the following work day after it is forwarded and deduct anticipated liquidated damages. After this review, the estimate will be forwarded by the Construction Unit to the Fiscal Section for payment. Until the estimate is paid by Fiscal, a request to stop payment can be made using the Interrupt button. If the processing can be stopped the status will become Pending CCU Approval and a request must be made to the Construction Unit to reject the estimate back to the Resident Engineer’s Office for changes or corrections.
