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Robert Gray, owner of in Tualatin, has a bone to pick with the state.

Since starting his small commercial construction company nearly 50 years ago, Gray, 81, has seen many economic ebbs and flows. But he said that making business adjustments has become increasingly difficult in recent years because of a state practice that he believes is choking his business and many others in the industry.

He calls it 鈥渞estraint of trade.鈥�

鈥淚’ve lost a lot of friends who are other contractors that are out of business now because there just wasn’t enough jobs to bid, and that’s sad,鈥� Gray said. 鈥淎nd I think if they’d been allowed to compete, they’d still be here.鈥�

Gray referred to the Construction Manager/General Contractor procurement method, which under certain circumstances allows state agencies to choose general contractors for public projects based on a subjective qualification process rather than competitive bidding.

The idea behind CM/GC is that for extremely difficult or complicated jobs, hiring a contractor as a consultant at the beginning of the design phase can help owner-agencies plan better for unforeseen issues.

Gray said that in good years, when plenty of private-sector jobs were available, contractors like himself didn’t pay much attention to CM/GC because it was too difficult to get on the short list for consideration. Meanwhile, Gray’s firm maintained competitiveness via pricing, he said. But now, much of the work available is coming from the public sector, and Gray says state agencies are rewarding 80 percent of those jobs through CM/GC.

鈥淭hat just means that 20 percent of the jobs are competitive,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t gets pretty crowded.鈥�

Gray said a recent pre-bid meeting for a fire station project drew 45 contractors.

The issue began to boil over during the last legislative session, so on Monday, Sen. Lee Beyer, D-Springfield, Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, and Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, held a meeting for the Public Construction Contracting Work Group Advisory Committee 鈥� an ad-hoc group of nearly 30 industry professionals gathered to discuss the CM/GC process.

鈥淭he main concerns (were) some felt the process was being over used, some felt it locks out many contractors from the process and some believe it has a tendency to raise cost for the public because of the lack of detailed bidding,鈥� Beyer wrote in an email before the meeting.

Beyer said the committee’s purpose is to review the existing law, consider transparency and cost concerns and, if needed, propose statute changes by fall 2012.

Opinions on CM/GC differ within the industry.

Gray believes the method increases the cost of construction by 20 percent and closes the door to small general contractors.

Bart Eberwein, vice president of Portland-based , a major CM/GC provider, says it’s a value-added service that owners seek because it can save them time and money.

In a 2002 report for a Eugene School District project a review committee estimated that the CM/GC process would save the district as much as $300,000 through increased planning and fewer change order fees.

Eberwein, one of the work group members, said he went through a similar process in 1997 that sought to identify when and how CM/GCs should be used. Before the meeting he talked about his expectations.

鈥�(There) are two big guiding principles: competition is open 鈥� the proverbial level playing field 鈥� and taxpayers best served,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 think there’s a feeling we should come together and see how we’re doing on those two counts.鈥�

The 91视频 contacted Eberwein after the meeting but he said Beyer had requested that all media inquiries be sent to him. Beyer could not be reached after the meeting.

Another work group member present Monday was Gerald Williams of Portland-based In 2003, Williams published a dissertation on the CM/GC process.

鈥淲e found that there was no statistically significant difference between the project delivery systems, either CM/GC or design-bid-build, with respect to their ability to control cost expansion or schedule,鈥� he said.

Williams said one advantage of CM/GC is that it allows contractors to get a jump start on projects because they can start work before blueprints are finalized.

In his dissertation, a comparison of construction for two nearly identical elementary schools found that the CM/GC project cost $7.38 million and was finished in 17 months; the design-bid-build project cost $6.6 million and was finished in 24 months.

Williams said part of the problem with CM/GC is that there has been a lack of oversight in cost savings analysis, which is required by law for all CM/GC projects.

鈥淯nfortunately, not all the public agencies that use CM/GCs did such a good job,鈥� he said. 鈥淪ome of them just said, 鈥極h yeah, we find that it’s going to save us money,’ and then when the job was over their post-doc report was, 鈥榊eah, it saved us money.’ 鈥�

Gray said that during the meeting Eberwein made the point that CM/GC should be used when there is a special need. His example was an airport project in which planes arrive and depart during construction.

鈥淚 could go along with that,鈥� Gray said of the airport scenario. 鈥淏ut not 80 percent of the jobs; that’s just tearing the whole building community apart.鈥�