President’s Perspective: CM at Risk for the Public Sector in Iowa

You’re right, that’s quite a long title for a post in this publication. In 2022, Governor Reynolds signed into law a bill that allowed construction manager-at-risk (CMAR) delivery on public improvement projects in Iowa. Since then, many public entities, design professionals and construction managers have begun to work through the nuances of applying this delivery method to public work in Iowa.

I emphasize in Iowa because our law is unique compared to surrounding states. In fact, no state adjacent to Iowa has the same rules and requirements as Iowa does – or to one another, for that matter. In other words, just because you or someone you know has done it somewhere else does not mean the same learnings or process from that state will be applicable here. See the graphic at the bottom of this post to see a comparison of CMAR in surrounding states.

Secondly, we have seen a wide variety of scoring approaches applied to qualifications, proposals and interviews. From what we have seen so far, the wide variety in scoring and the tendency to retread some other process – one that someone else used somewhere else – rarely leads to the best possible outcome for the Owner. This typically isn’t realized until further into a publicly visible process, when turning back or amending the process is nearly impossible. As a result, we’ve put together a guide to the process and several templates. You can find them here. These will at least help you start the process with intentionality and with the mindset of designing a process that applies to your project and unique set of circumstances.

Lastly, in these documents, we suggest that careful consideration be given to your pool of scorers. We see that it is critical to have people scoring qualifications and proposals that have an understanding of what good looks like for the project. Many times we are seeing too few subject matter experts and too many others that don’t have the depth of understanding to discern between submissions. That can lead to watered down scoring and a decision based primarily on cost, therefore defeating the purpose of a value-based judgement and selection.

We are here to help and support anyone on a CMAR journey in Iowa. Please contact us so you can benefit from the game film we have seen. You don’t need to go at it alone or retread what you did last time for a different project with a different delivery method, or what someone else did.

To maximize the value of this tool for public owners and those that serve them, it is critical we do this well as an industry. None of us is as smart as all of us.