Wyo. Code R. 027-0002-1
Effective Date: 05/09/2024 to Current
Rule Type: Current Rules & Regulations
Reference Number: 027.0002.1.05092024
Section 1. Authority. This Chapter is promulgated pursuant to Wyoming Statute 21-15-114(a)(xv).
Section 2. Definitions. As used in these rules and all project agreements entered into by the Department:
(a) 'Adequate' means a building, room, or other educational space is both sufficient and appropriate, as those terms are defined in this section.
(b) 'Anticipated Hard Bid' means the funding limit of the total amount of proposals or bids to achieve capital construction work or the Work, on and off-site, unless identified otherwise in the budget worksheet including prime bids, multiple prime bids, allowances, alternates and other costs of the Work.
(c) 'Appropriate' means a building, room, or other educational space that has the necessary infrastructure, storage, fixtures, and critical adjacencies to be compatible with the delivery of the required educational program.
(d) 'Bidding Contingency' means the funding amount identified by the Owner and design professionals within the Anticipated Hard Bid to accommodate market variances or estimating errors.
(e) 'Budget Worksheet' means the total funding structure of State Funds for a School Facilities Division capital construction project. The worksheet represents all project funds available through the State Construction Department for a project.
(f) 'Closed' means any educational building or facility that is not currently being used and is capable of being reopened.
(g) 'Cohort Survival Calculation' means the rate of progression for each grade (K through 11) to the next grade (1 through 12) using the ten-year average for each grade progression.
(h) 'Component Level Recommendations' means recommendations by the Commission to implement remedies to address educational building and facility condition by repairing or replacing components when it is determined by the Commission that it is not feasible for districts to do so solely with major maintenance funds.
(i) 'Construction Contingency' means funding identified to address unanticipated or unknown costs identified subsequent to the proposal or bidding process to achieve the Work. Construction Contingency is not a bidding contingency.
(j) “Contractor” means any person who is a party to a contract with the Commission or a district to accomplish the Work of any Commission approved remedy.
(k) “Critical adjacency” refers to an educational, administrative, educational support, or facility support space within an educational building that must be located near another space in order to be functional as intended.
(l) “Department” means the State Construction Department.
(m) “Design Charrette” means an interactive and collaborative process where participants (school district, architects and others) work in a focused and sustained effort to develop the basis for a feasible building design that meets the educational, budgetary and schedule goals for the project.
(n) “Design Contingency” means funding identified to address unanticipated costs associated with services provided by design professionals.
(o) “Design Professional” means the architect or other professional contracted with the district to design a remedy.
(p) “District” means any school district established pursuant to the laws of Wyoming excluding community colleges and community college districts.
(q) “District-initiated” refers to any renovation, construction, replacement, repair or other improvement of or to any school building or facility that is not a State-initiated remedy or major maintenance included in the district’s facility plan. This includes, but is not limited to, a district’s decision to include in a State-initiated remedy any design features or components contrary to the recommendations of value engineering performed in accordance with the Commission’s Facility Design Standards and Guidelines unless waived by the Department or excepted by the Commission in accordance with Chapter 1 Section 10 of these Rules, in excess of the Commission’s Facility Design Standards and Guidelines unless excepted by the Commission in accordance with Chapter 1 Section 10 of these Rules, or that add square footage in excess of Square Footage Calculator whether through construction, renovation, or acquisition of additional square footage.
(r) “District-initiated element” means any component, design feature, or square footage that is district-initiated and occurs in conjunction with a State-initiated remedy.
(s) “District-initiated project” means any project that is district-initiated and occurs independent of a legislative appropriation or Commission funding.
(t) “Educational specifications or “Ed-specs” means those specifications used to define the programmatic, educational and functional goals of the educational facility.
(u) “Elementary school” means any school with a grade configuration of kindergarten through sixth grade, or any combination thereof.
(v) “Facility Condition Assessment” (FCA) means the systematic process of collecting measured data, or making observations relative to the physical condition of a building or facility or one or more of its components or group(s) of components and recording the results.
(w) “Facility Condition Index” (FCI) means a numerical rating or building condition score based on measured data or assessment of physical components or systems. The condition of a building is expressed as a ratio of the Cost to Repair Deficiencies, or “Deferred Maintenance” (DM) divided by the Current Replacement Value (CRV) of the building. The formula is:
$$FCI = \frac{\sum DM}{\sum CRV}$$
(x) “High school” means any school with a grade configuration of ninth or tenth grade through twelfth grade.
(y) “Informal Review” means the opportunity afforded a school district under W.S. 21-15-116(f) to consult with the Department regarding an action of the Department prior to filing a request for a contested case proceeding before the Commission.
(z) “Kick-off Meeting” means a meeting(s) between personnel of the Department and personnel of the district, in addition to such other persons as may be necessary to accomplish project planning.
(aa) “Leased Facilities” means any land, building or equipment or other capital asset that has been leased by or to a district.
(bb) “Major Maintenance” is a common reference term that means “Major building and facility repair and replacement” as that term is defined in W.S. § 21-15-109(a)(iii).
(cc) “Middle school” means any stand-alone school or campus with any grade configuration that includes both seventh and eighth grade, but does not include the full range of grades down to kindergarten or up to twelfth grade. Districts may use an alternative descriptor such as “junior high school.”
(dd) “Most Cost Effective Remedy” means the most cost effective method of remediation as that phrase is used in W.S. 21-15-117(b).
(ee) “Mothballed building or facility” is any district building or facility which is closed and not operational, has the potential to be re-opened, is not being replaced under a district’s facility plan approved by the Commission, is not determined surplus within the district’s facility plan, and is maintained in good condition, for a maximum of three (3) years without additional approval from the Commission. Mothball status can be renewed by Commission approval after the initial three (3) years.
(ff) “Nonstudent-related buildings and facilities” means any building or facility that is either an “office building” or a “warehouse building,” as those terms are defined in W.S. 21-15-109(a)(iv) and (a)(viii).
(gg) “Payable-Leased Facilities” are those facilities which are used by the district to provide the approved educational programs as prescribed by W.S. 21-15-109(c)(i)(B). These facilities shall be included in the district’s gross square footage totals.
(hh) “Permanent Modular Building” means a pre-built, factory constructed and assembled educational building or facility that is transported in an assembled condition to the location on which the building or facility is to be situated that is placed on a permanent foundation, and that is expected to be used by the district for its designed lifetime.
(ii) “Primarily used” means more than fifty percent (50%) of a school building or facility is used in connection with educational programs, district administrative functions, or storage of equipment, materials, and other district property.
(jj) “Project Audit” means a contract compliance audit by an independent auditing expertise of project budgets and expenditures undertaken in accordance with W.S. 21-15-123(f)(v)(J).
(kk) “Project budget” means the amount of legislative funding allocated to a specific remedy. The project budget for any specific remedy shall be an amount determined by the Commission to be sufficient to fund the total project cost of the remedy. Funds allocated to a specific remedy remain State funds and are not an entitlement of any district.
(ll) “Rural school” means a school located outside the main metropolitan area in which the district is located and from which the district does not bus students into the metropolitan area for core instruction.
(mm) “Separate Account” means an individual account held by the district for depositing and expending major building and facility repair funds. These funds shall not be co-mingled with any other funds or accounts.
(nn) “State-initiated remedy” means any renovation, construction, replacement, repair, or other improvement of or to any school building or facility initiated by the legislature through an appropriation or the Commission through a funding decision, including major building and facility repair and replacement undertaken pursuant to a district’s facility plan. The elements and features of a state-initiated remedy are limited to those provided in the Commission’s Facility Design Standards and Guidelines, and the addition of any element or feature not included in those guidelines is not considered state-initiated.
(oo) “Sufficient” means that a building, room, or other educational space is of such a size that it has enough space to enable delivery of the required educational program.
(pp) “Surplus building” means a building that is not within the commission’s adequacy standards due to a renovation, construction, replacement, repair, or other improvement of or to any school building or facility initiated by a school district, an approved construction or renovation project, or by changes in school population.
(qq) “Temporary building” and “modular building” are defined interchangeably with “portable building” as that term is defined in W.S. 21-15-109(a)(v).
(rr) “Total project cost” means all project costs, including but not limited to: land acquisition, site preparation, design, construction, contingencies, FF&E, special studies (e.g. traffic, lighting), surveys, environmental assessments, geotechnical investigations, demolition, commissioning, owner’s representative fees, testing and inspections, plan review, and building permit/occupancy fees.
(ss) “Uniform Adequacy Standards” means those standards approved by the Commission in accordance with W.S. § 21-15-115(a) for the adequacy of school buildings and facilities necessary for providing educational programs prescribed by law for the public schools.
(tt) “Work” means the achievement of the work of a project including equipment, material and labor specified in a construction agreement.
(a) The Chair shall preside at all meetings of the Commission. The Chair shall appoint all committees and perform such duties as the statute, rule or the Commission specifies.
(b) In the absence of the Chair at any meeting of the Commission, the Vice-Chair shall serve as Acting Chair of the meeting. If both the Chair and Vice-Chair are absent or otherwise unable to preside over the meeting or perform a specified duty, the Chair shall designate a commissioner to serve as Acting Chair for the meeting or task.
(a) The Administrator of the School Facilities Division shall function as Secretary to the Commission, and the Department shall administratively implement the Commission’s rules. The Secretary for the Commission shall conduct and care for all the correspondence of the Commission and keep and maintain the minutes of all the meetings of the Commission and the books and records of the Commission. The Secretary shall provide notice of the time and place of all meetings of the Commission, including an agenda of items to be discussed, to each Commissioner.
(b) All orders and final decisions of the Commission, the minutes of all its sessions, meetings and proceedings, and the Commission’s rules shall be kept by the Secretary for permanent public record and shall be open for public inspection at the office of the Department, listed on the Department’s website. The Secretary may certify to the correctness of any copies of such documents.
(a) The Commission shall meet at least quarterly and at other times as necessary to transact its business.
(i) The Commission shall adopt by resolution a regular meeting schedule for each year.
(ii) When necessary, the Secretary may, in consultation with the Chairman, cancel regular meetings by providing individual notice to each Commissioner and providing public notice in accordance with W.S. § 16-4-404.
(iii) The Commission may call special meetings as necessary, in accordance with W.S. § 16-4-404(b).
(b) Meetings and hearings shall be separate functions.
(a) An agenda shall be prepared by the Secretary and approved by the Chair. The agenda shall set forth the matters scheduled to come before the Commission at the meeting and indicate for each matter whether it requires action to be taken by the Commission at the meeting. Before each meeting of the Commission, the Secretary shall circulate to all Commissioners the agenda so prepared by the Secretary and approved by the Chair.
(b) Any Commission member may direct the Secretary to include an agenda item for the Commission’s consideration.
(c) Other than for purposes of public comment, persons desiring to have a matter brought before the Commission shall make their requests through the Department. Department staff shall work with the Secretary and the persons making the request to determine how and when it is appropriate that the matter be presented to the Commission. The Secretary shall consult with the chairman of the Commission when making this determination.
(a) A Commissioner shall recuse himself from all proceedings relating to a matter if he or she has a personal or private interest in the matter. The Commissioner shall recuse him or herself by serving a written or verbal notice of recusal upon the Chair, who shall notify all other Commissioners and any parties involved in the matter. On and after the date of recusal, the recused Commissioner shall not participate in any deliberations, decisions or other actions of the Commission relating to the matter.
(b) A recused Commissioner may attend hearings and other proceedings related to a recused matter as a member of the public. The Commissioner may also attend any Commission meeting at which topics relating to the matter arise and participate in the deliberations, decisions and other actions of the Commission on topics unrelated to the matter upon which recusal has occurred.
Section 8. Signing of Contracts. Contracts, agreements, memoranda of understandings and other documents of the Commission may be signed by the Chair, or by a designee of the chair. The Secretary shall sign only those contracts, agreements, memoranda of understanding or other documents of the Commission for which the Commission has delegated its authority to the Secretary. The Secretary may further designate a member of the staff to sign on his or her behalf.
(a) All requests for public records from the Commission shall be in writing and processed according to this Section. For purposes of the Wyoming Public Records Act, the Secretary is the custodian of all public records of the Commission.
(b) The Commission incorporates by reference the following uniform rule:
(i) Chapter 2 – Uniform Procedures, Fees, Costs, and Charges for Inspecting, Copying, and Producing Public Records, adopted by the Department of Administration and Information and effective on September 6, 2016, found at: https://rules.wyo.gov;
(ii) The Commission has determined that incorporation of the full text in this rule would be cumbersome or inefficient given the length or nature of the rule;
(iii) The incorporation by reference does not include any later amendments or edition of the incorporated matter beyond the applicable date identified in subsection (b)(i); and
(iv) The incorporated rule is maintained at the Department’s Cheyenne office and is available for public inspection and copying at cost at the same location.