Stagnant Percentage-of-Construction Fees Throw Designers A Curve
Engineer and Cornell University Professor Paul G. Carr says civil engineers are getting stiffed. In the 33 years since the U.S. Justice Dept. first enforced antitrust laws against engineer and architect associations, the groups stopped updating fee guidance for members. As a result, practitioners found that "percentage of construction," a widely used fee determinant among many public sector owners and some private, hardly changed much in that time. From the Florida Dept. of General Services to the Kentucky Education Dept., many owners still are awarding fees based on the same percentages used in 1972.
And that, say Carr and co-author Pamela S. Beyor in a July article in the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Management in Engineering, has allowed inflation to eat away at the value of feeswith unhappy consequences for the profession. But there are possible solutions, as seen in a fee increase agreement in Washington state that took effect last month and could be a model for practitioners elsewhere.