July 2023
2023 Wisconsin Act 19 made numerous changes to project approval thresholds for State of Wisconsin construction projects. For example, the Small Projects and Simplified Bidding threshold has been increased from $300,000 to $600,000. Many projects in this range will no longer require Single Prime (or Single Trade) Bidding and Contracting, instead they will bid and contract under Small Project and Simplified Bidding procedures.
In certain instances, these threshold increases may impact contractor certification levels. The DFD Certification team has updated certification levels as appropriate. Contractors do not need to submit for updated certification. Please direct all certification questions to dfdcertification@wisconsin.gov .
October 2022
The Division of Facilities Development has uploaded a new template to the DOA website. For additional specification volumes, creating a table of contents can be cumbersome for our design partners. DFD has created a new master template for those additional volumes in order to make your lives just a little bit easier.
As a reminder, you should always navigate to the DOA website and download your documents at the beginning of each project. We do not recommend using saved copies as minor revisions are made to our documents frequently. You can find the master templates by navigating to: https://doa.wi.gov/Pages/DoingBusiness/DocLibrary.aspx
We want to thank you all for your continued support of these changes. Please contact BCBCA Enterprise Program Supervisor, Jessica Scharff, with any questions at Jessica.Scharff@wisconsin.gov
August 2022
The Division of Facilities Development is excited to announce updates to our master templates and new Building Information Modeling (BIM) guidelines. We recently completed a series of revisions to our master templates to correct outdated language, introduce new process improvements, and make COVID-related process changes permanent.
After surveying our construction partners, we are happy to announce we are formalizing many of the process improvements made following the start of the pandemic. These include:
Bid submission via e-mail
Virtual Bid Openings via Microsoft Teams
The ability to electronically sign bid forms and contract documents.
In addition, we will now be accepting electronic bid submissions for all projects bid by DFD and will no longer be conducting bid openings in Eau Claire.
As part of these revisions, DFD has formalized Building Information Modeling (BIM) guidelines as well as introduced a new technical specification to be included in documents when necessary. This specification section details administrative and procedural requirements necessary to prepare coordination documents, including a Building Information Model (BIM) using three-dimensional elements. The purpose of BIM is to create a model that will be used for contractor coordination of all trades through the construction lifecycle.
As a reminder, you should always navigate to the DOA website and download your documents at the beginning of each project. We do not recommend using saved copies as minor revisions are made to our documents frequently. You can find the master templates by navigating to: https://doa.wi.gov/Pages/DoingBusiness/DocLibrary.aspx
You can see a complete summary of revisions by clicking here.
NOTE: These revised templates are required to be used for any project that will be bid on or after November 1st, 2022.
In addition to the revisions to our documents, we have two important updates related to bid documents and Wisbuild Help Desk Tickets:
- Drawing Files for Bid Documents and Construction Documents are requested to be a Single PDF File rather than a Zip Folder.
- We will no longer require individual drawings files in zip folders.
- File size limit: 2GB/per PDF file.
- PDF drawing files should remain separated by volume.
- Wisbuild Help Desk Ticket File Size Attachment Limit has been increased to 200 MB
- The previous file size limit was 2MB.
- Anything over 200 MB will need to be broken into more than one file.
We want to thank you all for your continued support of these changes. Please contact BCBCA Enterprise Program Supervisor, Jessica Scharff, with any questions at Jessica.Scharff@wisconsin.gov
These revisions also incorporate new digital signature authorizations. For further details, click here.
Previous Updates
DFD Single Prime Bidding and Contracting Updates
Other Important Notices