PURPOSE: This rule explains the need for the contractor rating system established in this chapter and states the general objectives of the system.

1. (1) The commission has the obligation to award its contracts to only responsible bidders. The commission also has the duty to supervise and control the construction and maintenance of its state highway system. Inherent in these concepts, and in the commission’s general obligation to the traveling public of this state, is that the commission must regulate those who construct the finished highway product. The commission does not prequalify persons or firms as responsible bidders and contractors. Therefore, it requires a system for evaluating the performance of those contractors working on commission projects.
2. (2) This contractor rating system is intended to help the commission periodically determine those contractors who are responsible or are nonresponsible and those responsible contractors whose outstanding or superior performance merits recognition by the commission. In the process, the rating system is intended to provide the contractors with evaluations of their work and information they can use to improve their performance and product on future commission projects.
3. (3) These regulations also set forth the procedures governing how contractors who render unsatisfactory performance may be determined nonresponsible and ineligible to bid for work on commission projects and how nonresponsible contractors may be reinstated as responsible bidders or responsible contractors.

AUTHORITY: sections 226.020, 227.030 and 227.100, RSMo 1986 and 226.130, RSMo Supp. 1993.* Original rule filed Dec. 31, 1990, effective July 8, 1991.

*Original authority: 226.020, RSMo 1939; 226.130, RSMo 1939, amended 1993; 227.030, RSMo 1939; and 227.100, RSMo 1939, amended 1963, 1967, 1969.