The 2025 Legislative Session wrapped up last week, delivering several key victories for the business of engineering. Most notably, our bill to strengthen the Hammett Act, Louisiana’s Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS) law, successfully passed through both chambers. Additionally, the full legislative package aimed at improving efficiency and modernizing operations at LADOTD cleared the legislative process and now awaits the Governor’s signature. The session also saw the approval of substantial funding for critical transportation projects. Beyond these legislative wins, ACECL effectively advocated against several proposals that could have negatively impacted the engineering profession and industry.

The passage of HB 312, by Rep. Foy Gadberry, is a major win for the business of engineering and the design community as a whole as it will close a loophole in the Hammett Act by requiring QBS procurement when any public dollars (state or local) are being used for engineering, architecture or surveying.

Currently, the law only prohibits a 'public entity' from considering price or price related information when selecting A/E services. However, some public entities have exploited this narrow language by instructing their prime consultants—private entities selected through QBS—to solicit bids from their A/E subconsultants. This practice, a clear circumvention of the law’s intent, will now be explicitly prohibited. The bill also clarifies that any private entity contracted by a public entity to deliver a project or program of projects must fully comply with the Hammett Act. 

The Governor has already signed the legislation into law, but the enhanced Hammett Act will not take effect until August 1, 2025. That said, please notify me directly if you experience any public entity requesting bids or price related information from your A/E subs or you have a prime designer working for a public entity that is requesting bids engineering or surveying services. 

Spurred by Governor Jeff Landry’s Executive Order and the findings of the Boston Consulting Group’s LADOTD efficiency report, House Transportation Committee Chair Rep. Ryan Bourriaque spearheaded a package of reform legislation aimed at overhauling operations within the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD). As noted above, all three bills successfully advanced through the legislative process though not without undergoing substantial amendments. Notably, Chairman Bourriaque addressed concerns raised by our members by converting our redlined language into amendments to both HB 528 and HB 556. As enacted, the legislation accomplishes the following:

HB 528 restructures LADOTD’s organizational hierarchy, redefining the duties, powers, and responsibilities of departmental personnel. As originally filed the bill most notably removed the Chief Engineer as an official officer of the department and replaces the role with the Assistant Secretary of the newly established Office of Project Delivery. The bill also included provisions to gradually transition many LADOTD positions from classified to unclassified status. In response to recommendations from ACECL and other stakeholders, these provisions were amended out of the bill. While the Chief Engineer position remains, the Chief will now report directly to the Assistant Secretary of the new Office of Project Delivery. Also of note, the provision prohibiting the funding of past and present DOTD employees from the Transportation Trust Fund was removed from the bill in Senate committee.

HB 556 reorganizes LADOTD operations by consolidating the Office of Planning and the Office of Engineering into a single entity: the Office of Project Delivery, led by the newly created Assistant Secretary position. Under the revised structure, the Chief Engineer will report to the Assistant Secretary—who, under the bill, is not required to be a licensed professional engineer. The legislation also establishes a new Office of Transformation and grants the LADOTD Secretary authority to eliminate positions and reassign duties to the newly created Office of Louisiana Highway Construction. 

HB 640 formally establishes the Office of Louisiana Highway Construction under the Office of the Governor and the Division of Administration. In coordination with the two bills above, it empowers the LADOTD Secretary to transfer departmental functions to this new office when such moves are deemed more efficient and effective.

While there remains much uncertainty regarding the implementation of the legislation and the ripple effects it could have on traditional and established LADOTD policies, ACECL will stay engaged every step of the way. As the effective dates of these changes approach, the next few months will be critical to engaged new LADOTD leadership and other stakeholder groups to ensure the transition to transformation is a seamless and impactful as possible.

There is also a strong possibility that these reforms will lead to an increased outsourcing of work, specifically, for engineering. As these bills were heard in both the House and Senate Committees, testimony was given that outsourcing engineering costs 20% to 80% more than doing the same work inhouse. ACEC completed a comprehensive study comparing 30 DOTs and corresponding firm data and found outsourcing engineering actually results in a 15% savings to the taxpayer. That full report can be accessed by clicking the button below. 

In HB 2, the legislature appropriated funding for transportation projects as they always do, but this year they appropriate $632 million directly to the Louisiana Transportation Infrastructure Fund (LTIF). These funds will be used to design and construct four bundles of projects. Those project bundles can be found in Amendment No.46 linked here ViewDocument.aspx. It is my understanding that LADOTD is planning to pursue a progressive design build project delivery method for these bundles. 

SB 164 and SB 166, by Sen. Glen Womack, originated from the Public Project Payment Task Force which was created by Senator Womack to look into the payment processing policies and procedures of both state and local agencies and determine their effectiveness. 

SB 164 effective July 1, 2026, will require all elected officials or employees of a municipality, parish or political subdivision responsible for managing, tracking or approving payments to undergo a private public contract payment training for public contracts. The purpose of the law is to bring visibility, awareness and understanding of state laws that pertain to payment applications and timely payments to the designers, subconsultants, contractors and subcontractors who performed the work. ACECL will be reaching out to the Legislative Auditor to assist in developing the training material to assure QBS law is thoroughly covered along with the Louisiana Anti-Indemnification Act. 

SB 166 will require that a preconstruction meeting occur between the local governmental entity, the contractor, the appropriate state entity, and the design professional of record for the purpose of establishing clear expectations of the contract deliverables, project deadlines, accountability standards, payment schedules, and an expedited grievance procedure for complaints. The bill will further require DOA and DOTD to develop and maintain software that will track pay applications submitted and where the app is at in the payment process. Local governments who receive state funding will be required to utilize this software. The software will also be made available to the designer, contractor, sub consultants and subcontractors for increased visibility and transparency.,   

HB 603, by Rep. Dixon McMakin, sought to amend the appointing process for certain occupational and professional licensing boards like LAPELS. The bill effectively would have allowed the Governor to select from names other than those submitted by the nominating authorities named in the in the respective statutes. The bill made it all the way to the Senate Floor but failed to be heard there before the session ended. 

SB 122, by Sen. Mark Abraham, actually passed but only after Senator Abraham rejected a bad amendment adopted in House committee. The bill itself deals with the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors and had no real effects on the engineering until an amendment was place on the bill in the House and Governmental Affairs Committee. The amendment stated that engineers designing vessels to be used for commercial, military or law enforcement purposes were exempted from LAPELS rules and regulation. After hearing concerns from the engineering community, Senator Abraham assured us the amendment would be removed, as it was. 

If you have any questions, concerns, or information regarding any legislative matters, please email me at bdirmann@acecl.org