As a result, one of the projects showed a deficit, or overrun, when in fact it was within budget. Another area of concern is the specifications established by the coordinating architect for selecting architectural and engineering firms. The district's requests for proposals for these contracts do not require CAD systems. This limits these firms' flexibility in making changes to building designs to adapt to the district's changing needs. Recent changes in state law permit school districts to choose from a variety of options for managing their design and construction programs.
Districts can hire an architect through a competitive bidding process.
Under this option, the architect is hired directly to design and build, which provides the advantage of a single point of responsibility. However, this option lacks the design phase assistance under the coordinating architect option, and can result in a lack of flexibility. Another option is hiring a construction manager through a request for proposal process, which expands the construction manager's role to a general contractor. Under this option, the construction manager becomes the at-risk manager providing design phase assistance. While flexibility and a team concept are inherent in this option, adversarial relationships are more likely than with the coordinating architect option.