§2313. Selection of persons for professional services; participation in mentor-protégé program

            A. Each person who is to be retained or employed to perform professional services by an agency shall be selected by the boards from properly licensed architects, engineers, and landscape architects. Each of the boards shall consider those persons who make application for employment on any particular project.

            B. The following guides, among other factors that the boards may deem appropriate, shall be used by the boards in selecting persons for professional services:

            (1) Professional training and experience, both generally and in relation to the type and magnitude of work required for the particular project;

            (2) Capacity for timely completion of the work, taking into consideration the person's or firm's current and projected workload and professional and support manpower;

            (3) Past and current professional accomplishments, for which opinions of clients or former clients and information gathered by inspection of current or recent projects may be considered;

            (4) The nature, quantity, and value of agency work previously performed and presently being performed by the person after the effective date of this Part, it being generally desirable to allocate such work among persons who are desirous and qualified to perform such work.

            (5) Past performance on public projects, including any problems with time delays, cost overruns, and design inadequacies for which the designer was held to be at fault, involved in prior projects as evidenced by documentation provided by the Facility Planning and Control Department of the office of the governor;

            (6) An analysis provided by the Facility Planning and Control Department of the office of the governor of whether problems as indicated in Paragraph (5) of this Subsection resulted in litigation between the public entity and the person performing professional services, particularly if the designer is currently involved in unsettled litigation with a public entity or has been involved in litigation with a public entity where the public entity prevailed.

            (7) The geographic proximity of the physical location of the office of the otherwise qualified applicant to the physical location of the job or project.

            C. The boards may, for each individual job or project, establish those qualifications and guidelines they deem necessary to select the person to be retained or employed for such job or project.

            D. The boards shall make their selections of persons for a project within sixty days after notification by the Division of Administration as required herein.

            E. Nothing in this Section shall be interpreted as denying the right of the prime professional to select, with the approval of the head of the facility planning and control department, the person or persons to perform supplemental professional services for a capital outlay project.

            F. The boards may, for any contract governed by the provisions of this Part, include participation in a mentor-protégé program as provided by R.S. 51:946 and 947 as one of the guides used for selection of persons for a project in accordance with Subsection B of this Section.

            Added by Acts 1975, No. 721, §1. Amended by Acts 1976, No. 525, §2; Acts 1982, No. 697, §1; Acts 1999, No. 1284, §1; Acts 2016, No. 489, §1, eff. July 1, 2016.