Florida’s Consultants’ Competitive Negotiation Act sets the compliance rules and penalties that govern how public agencies hire architects, engineers, landscape architects, and surveyors, and how those professionals may pursue public work. Codified at Section 287.055, the statute requires qualifications-based selection before any price discussion, bans contingent fees, and backs both requirements with criminal, administrative, and debarment consequences.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services If you work on either side of a Florida public contract for design or planning services, these are the rules that decide whether your selection stands and whether your firm keeps its license and eligibility.
Who Must Follow the CCNA
The CCNA covers “professional services” within the scope of architecture, professional engineering, landscape architecture, or registered surveying and mapping, including related work these licensees perform in connection with their practice.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services On the buyer side, “agency” reaches the state and state agencies, municipalities, political subdivisions, school districts, and school boards.
The full public announcement and competitive negotiation procedure is triggered when a project’s estimated basic construction cost exceeds the Section 287.017 Category Five threshold, or when planning and study fees exceed the Category Two threshold.2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services Below those amounts, an agency may use other procurement methods. If the proposals received under an alternative method mostly come in above the threshold, the agency must reject all proposals and restart under the full CCNA process. The agency must support its threshold decision with a good faith estimate; underestimating a project to stay below the trigger is one of the most common openings for a protest.
The Qualifications-First Selection Sequence
The CCNA inverts the usual low-bid approach. Price enters the process only after ranking, and only with the firm already identified as most qualified.
Public Announcement
Every covered project begins with a public announcement describing the general scope of work and explaining how interested firms can apply.2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services The only recognized exception is a valid public emergency certified by the agency head. Shortening or skipping this step is one of the clearest grounds for a disappointed firm to challenge an award.
Ranking the Top Three
The agency selects at least three firms it considers most highly qualified. The statute specifies the factors the selection committee must weigh, including the ability of professional personnel, certified minority business enterprise status, past performance, willingness to meet schedule and budget, location, current workload, and the volume of work the agency has previously awarded the firm.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services The prior-work factor reflects a statutory goal of spreading work equitably among qualified firms, provided it does not override the duty to pick the most qualified. Price does not appear in this list, and allowing fee information to influence ranking contradicts the qualifications-first mandate and can invalidate the selection.
Sequential Competitive Negotiation
Once ranked, the agency negotiates compensation with the top-ranked firm. If it reaches a price it considers fair, competitive, and reasonable, it awards the contract. If not, it formally terminates negotiations with that firm and moves to the second. If the second firm also fails, it moves to the third. Should all three fall through, the agency selects additional firms in order of qualifications and continues until a deal is reached.2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services Running parallel negotiations, or returning to a terminated firm to use its number against the next one, is not the process the statute allows.
Continuing Contracts and the Annual Threshold Adjustment
Agencies may use continuing contracts for ongoing work, subject to per-project ceilings. Individual construction projects assigned under a continuing contract cannot exceed $7.5 million in estimated construction cost, and individual studies cannot exceed $500,000 in fees.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services
A 2024 amendment added an inflation adjustment. Beginning July 1, 2025, and each July 1 thereafter, the Florida Department of Management Services adjusts the $7.5 million construction threshold using the year-over-year change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, and publishes the adjusted figure on its website.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services Check that published figure each year before assigning a project under an existing contract, because the current threshold decides whether the work can go through the continuing contract or has to go back out for a new competitive selection.
Design-Build: Mostly Outside the CCNA
The CCNA generally does not govern procurement of design-build contracts. Agencies follow whatever other procurement laws, rules, or ordinances apply to them.2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services One piece stays inside the CCNA: the design criteria package defining the project must be prepared and sealed by a design criteria professional, and if the agency hires that professional from outside, the selection must follow the full CCNA procedure. A firm that prepares the design criteria package cannot bid on the design-build contract itself.
Municipalities, school districts, and other local agencies may use a qualifications-based selection for design-build work, in which case they must employ or retain a licensed design professional as the agency’s representative during selection. They may also use a competitive proposal process that evaluates firms first on qualifications, availability, and past work, then scores proposals on price, technical merit, and design quality.2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services
The Contingent Fee Prohibition
Every contract covered by the CCNA must include a warranty from the professional that no company or individual other than a bona fide employee was hired to solicit or secure the contract, and that no fee, commission, or gift was paid contingent on the award.2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services
Breach of that warranty lets the agency terminate the contract without liability and recover the full amount of any contingent fee paid. The criminal exposure runs further than many firms realize. Soliciting an agency contract for professional services in exchange for a contingent fee is a first degree misdemeanor. The same charge applies to any professional who pays such a fee, and to any agency official who solicits or secures a contract for contingent compensation.2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 287.055 – Acquisition of Professional Architectural, Engineering, Landscape Architectural, or Surveying and Mapping Services A first degree misdemeanor in Florida carries up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Arrangements that do not announce themselves as contingent fees still fall within the ban. A success bonus to a lobbyist or consultant tied to winning a public contract is a contingent fee, as is any third-party compensation that depends on whether the agency makes the award, regardless of what the parties call it.
Penalties for Violations
Beyond the misdemeanor exposure built into the CCNA itself, firms and individuals that cross the line in public procurement face business and professional consequences that can outlast any criminal case.
The Convicted Vendor List
Section 287.133 establishes the convicted vendor list, a registry of firms and individuals barred from doing business with any Florida public entity. Placement follows a conviction for a “public entity crime,” which the statute defines as any state or federal law violation directly related to public procurement, including fraud, bribery, collusion, racketeering, conspiracy, theft, and material misrepresentation.3Florida Senate. Florida Code 287.133 – Public Entity Crime; Denial or Revocation of the Right to Transact Business With Public Entities
Once listed, the firm and its affiliates cannot submit bids, proposals, or replies on any public entity contract, and cannot work as a contractor, subcontractor, or consultant for any Florida public entity for 36 months.3Florida Senate. Florida Code 287.133 – Public Entity Crime; Denial or Revocation of the Right to Transact Business With Public Entities The affiliate definition is broad enough to reach predecessors, successors, and entities under the control of someone convicted of a public entity crime, and a joint venture with such a person within the prior 36 months can itself make a firm an affiliate.
Professional License Discipline
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation licenses architects and engineers and can discipline a licensee independently of any criminal proceedings. For engineers, the Board of Professional Engineers can revoke or suspend the license, impose administrative fines up to $5,000 per violation, issue a reprimand, require probation, restrict the scope of practice, or order restitution.4Online Sunshine. Florida Code 471.033 – Disciplinary Proceedings The board can also assess the costs of investigation and prosecution against the licensee.5Legal Information Institute. Florida Administrative Code R. 61G6-10.002 – Violations and Penalties
Penalty severity scales with violation history. A first-time offense draws from the lower end of the guidelines; repeated violations of the same provision can produce suspension or revocation.5Legal Information Institute. Florida Administrative Code R. 61G6-10.002 – Violations and Penalties For a firm built on public work, even a short suspension shuts the door on new selections for the duration and lingers in reputation afterward.
Federal Debarment
Firms with federal work face another layer. Under federal acquisition regulations, a state-level conviction for antitrust violations tied to bid submissions is an independent cause for federal debarment, and any offense indicating “a lack of business integrity or business honesty that seriously and directly affects the present responsibility of a Government contractor” can trigger debarment across all federal agencies.6eCFR. 48 CFR 9.406-2 – Causes for Debarment A fraud or collusion conviction out of a Florida municipal project can cost a firm its federal eligibility nationwide.
Where Compliance Usually Breaks Down
Most CCNA failures are not elaborate schemes. They are procedural choices that look harmless until someone contests the award. Agencies abbreviate the public announcement and invite protests from firms that never got the chance to compete. Selection committees let cost information into the room before ranking is complete, undermining the qualifications-first requirement. Projects get framed as something other than professional services to keep them out of the CCNA; when the substance of the work plainly calls for a licensed architect or engineer, that framing can be challenged, because reviewers look at what the work actually is rather than the label the agency used.
On the firm side, the contingent fee ban and the public entity crime regime deserve more attention than they usually get. The payment arrangement with an outside consultant, the structure of a teaming agreement, and the identity of every party in a joint venture all touch rules that carry criminal charges, three-year contracting bans, license discipline, and in some cases federal debarment. Those are the stakes behind the CCNA’s compliance rules, and they are the reason the qualifications-first process and the contingent fee warranty are worth treating as hard requirements rather than paperwork.