How far does the State Properties Review Board's authority reach when it reviews no-bid construction, no-bid consultant, and design-build contracts?

Plain-English summary

The State Properties Review Board chair, Edwin Greenberg, asked AG William Tong to settle a long-running disagreement with the Department of Administrative Services about how deeply the Board could review four kinds of state contracts: no-bid construction contracts under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-91(g), two flavors of no-bid consultant contracts (under § 4b-23(i) and §§ 4b-55 through 4b-59), and design-build contracts under § 4b-24b. DAS and the Board did not agree on the standard.

Tong's answer: the Board's review is broad across all four. The general scope-of-review provision, § 4b-3(f), tells the Board to consider "all aspects" of a proposed transaction, including the prudence of the business method, with access to all files and records and the right to use agency personnel. The no-bid construction statute (§ 4b-91(i)) explicitly incorporates that standard. The no-bid consultant statutes do not, but they trace back to the same 1975 Public Act (75-425) that created both the Board and the broad review standard, and they have been amended ten times without anyone narrowing them. Design-build contracts likewise carry no narrowing language. The single instance of legislative narrowing, P.A. 76-116 for federally funded DOL leases, proves the rule.

Bottom line: the Board cannot exceed its statutory authority, but within that authority it has broad and largely unlimited review power over the listed contract types.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2019. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Q: What is the State Properties Review Board?
A: A watchdog board the legislature created in 1975 to vet the State's real estate acquisitions, leases, and certain contracts. It was a response to a legislative investigation that uncovered patronage, cronyism, and collusion in state leasing. The Board sits independent of DAS and the Department of Transportation but reviews their contracting decisions.

Q: What does "all aspects of the proposed actions" actually let the Board look at?
A: Per § 4b-3(f), the feasibility of the transaction, the method of acquisition, the prudence of the business method, and full access to all files and records, including financial records. The Board can also use agency personnel to assist its review. That is essentially every input that goes into the contracting decision.

Q: Why does the silence of some statutes about review scope matter?
A: Connecticut courts use the canon that legislatures know how to limit what they want to limit. The legislature narrowed Board review once in 1976, in detailed terms, for federally funded DOL leases. Forty-plus years of amendments to the consultant and design-build statutes without similar narrowing language tell a court the legislature meant the broad standard to keep applying.

Q: What's the time limit on Board action?
A: Thirty days for no-bid construction contracts under § 4b-91(g) and consultant contracts under § 4b-23(i), or the contract is deemed approved. The design-build statute (§ 4b-24b(b)) does not impose an express time limit.

Q: How does this affect DAS workflow?
A: DAS still manages the State's real estate and is the contracting authority. The Board is a quality-control review layer. DAS has to give the Board complete information and respond to the Board's questions, but the Board cannot redesign the contract; it approves or disapproves.

Q: Are design-build contracts treated differently?
A: Same broad standard. Section 4b-24b(b) requires Board approval before DAS can sign a design-build deal and ties no narrowing language to that approval, so § 4b-3(f) supplies the default.

Background and statutory framework

The Board was created by Public Act 75-425, "An Act Implementing the Report of the Appropriations Committee's Special Subcommittee on Leasing." The subcommittee's January 1975 final report documented widespread misuse of the state real estate system: leases granted to political allies at above-market rents, kickbacks, and decisions made for reasons unrelated to the State's interest. The Board was the structural response: an independent body with veto power over the kind of decisions DAS had been making alone.

Section 1(f) of P.A. 75-425 (now Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f)) set the standard the AG returned to throughout the opinion: the Board reviews "all aspects" of proposed actions, with full access to records and personnel. Other sections of the same Act required Board review of specific contract types (§ 2(e), now § 4b-23(i), for consultant contracts being one example) without separately specifying a scope. The AG's analysis treats those silent provisions as inheriting § 4b-3(f) by default.

The one piece of contrary authority, P.A. 76-116, came a year after the Board was created. The legislature carved a narrow exception for federally funded Department of Labor leases, with a strict 60-day clock and a review limited to whether the rent and location were reasonable compared to local rates. Sponsors of the original Act fought that change and only let it pass with explicit assurances that no other type of Board review would be similarly restricted. Forty-three years later, the AG cited those floor statements as legislative history that confirms what the silence everywhere else already implies.

The opinion also illustrates the AG's use of statutory-construction canons: text first under § 1-2z, the harmonious-whole rule from Connecticut Housing Finance Authority v. Alfaro, the prohibition on reading limitations into a statute that the legislature did not write (McCullough v. Swan Engraving), and the deference owed to long legislative silence on a topic the legislature has demonstrably revisited.

Citations and references

Statutes and acts:
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f) (general Board scope of review)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-23(i) (no-bid consultant contracts, type 1)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 4b-55 through 4b-59 (no-bid consultant contracts, type 2)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-24b(b) (design-build contracts)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-91(g), (i) (no-bid construction contracts)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-250(c) (DOL federal-lease exception)
- Public Act 75-425; Public Act 76-116; Public Act 91-124; Public Act 04-141

Statutory-construction cases:
- Marchesi v. Board of Selectmen of Town of Lyme, 328 Conn. 615 (2018)
- Williams v. City of New Haven, 329 Conn. 366 (2018)
- McCullough v. Swan Engraving, Inc., 320 Conn. 299 (2016)
- Connecticut Housing Finance Authority v. Alfaro, 328 Conn. 134 (2018)

Prior AG opinion:
- Conn. Op. Atty Gen. 2010-006, 2010 WL 5088187 (Dec. 9, 2010)

Source

• Landing page: https://portal.ct.gov/AG/Opinions
• Original PDF: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/ag/opinions/2019/2019-04_sprb.pdf?rev=fb7b71ba0a014db0b26fce9ae3430634

Original opinion text

55 Elm Street
P.O. Box 120
Hartford, CT 06141-0120

WILLIAM TONG
ATTO RNE Y GENE RAL

Office of the Attorney General

State of Connecticut
(860) 808-5318

May 31 , 2019
Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
State Properties Review Board
450 Columbus Boulevard, Suite 202
Hartford, CT 06103
Dear Chairman Greenberg:
You have requested a formal legal opinion on the scope of the State
Properties Review Board's ("Board") statutory authority to review certain state
contracts. In pmiicular, you seek clarification regarding the standards applicable
to the Board's review of four types of state contracts under (i) Conn. Gen. Stat.
§ 4b-91(g) (No-Bid Construction Contracts); (ii) Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 4b-23(i) and
4b-55 through 4b-59 (two types of No-Bid Consultant Contracts); and (iii) Conn.
Gen. Stat. § 4b-24b (Design Build Contracts) (collectively, the "No-Bid
Construction, No-Bid Consultant and Design Build Contracts"). You further ask
whether the Board ' s statutory review of these state contracts is "in any way
limited." Because the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) and the
Board are not in complete agreement regarding the applicable review standards
for No-Bid Construction, No-Bid Consultant and Design Build Contracts, clarity
regarding the review standards will assist both DAS and the Board in fulfilling
their statutory functions. Upon review of the statutory language, the Public Acts
and the legislative history, we conclude that the Board is limited to its statutory
authority, but within that statutory authority, the Board's scope of review of the
state contracts is broad.
Background

The legislature established the Board in 1975 as a watchdog entity to
ensure that the State's real estate acquisitions and leases would be in the State's
best interest and free from "political patronage, cronyism, personal spoils
systems, and friendship. " See Final Report of the Sub-Committee on Leasing,
Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations, p. 30, January 7, 1975. While DAS
remains responsible for managing the state' s real estate, the legislature has vested
the Board with independent decision-making authority and charged it with
reviewing real estate acquisitions, sales, leases and subleases proposed by the

An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 2

DAS Commissioner. Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 4b-1, 4b-3(e), 4b-3(f), and 4b-23(e).
The Board reviews similar transactions by the Chief Court Administrator and the
Department of Transportation (DOT). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f). The No-Bid
Construction, No-Bid Consultant and Design Build Contracts at issue here all
require Board review.
From its inception in 1975, the Board has been granted a broad scope with
respect to the Board’s review of state contracts. Specifically, as currently
enacted, subsection (f) directs in pertinent part that:
Such review shall consider all aspects of the
proposed actions, including feasibility and method
of acquisition and the prudence of the business
method proposed. . . . The board shall have access
to all information, files and records, including
financial records, of the Commissioner of
Administrative Services and the Commissioner of
Transportation, and shall, when necessary, be
entitled to the use of personnel employed by said
commissioners.
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f). See P.A. 75-425, § 1(f) for similar operative language.
See also Conn. Op. Atty Gen. 2010-006, 2010 WL 5088187 (Conn. A.G., Dec. 9,
2010) (Attorney General Opinion upholding the Board’s broad authority under
§ 4b-3(f)).
Analysis
Summary
Your question requires us to construe multiple statutes that have been
repeatedly amended for more than forty years. In construing a statute, its meaning
“shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its
relationship to other statutes.” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 1-2z. “If, after examining such
text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and
unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual
evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered.” Id. “When a
statute is not plain and unambiguous, [the Court] also look[s] for interpretive
guidance to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment,

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 3

to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to
existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general
subject matter.” Marchesi v. Board of Selectmen of Town of Lyme, 328 Conn. 615,
628 (2018). “It is a basic tenet of statutory construction that the intent of
the legislature is to be found not in an isolated phrase or sentence but, rather, from
the statutory scheme as a whole.” Williams v. City of New Haven, 329 Conn. 366,
378–79 (2018) (internal citations omitted).
Applying these rules, we look first at the statutes’ text. The baseline
standard for the scope of the Board’s review is established by the broad standard
set forth in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f) (above), requiring review of “all aspects” of
the transaction, including full access to all documents and assistance from DAS
staff, if necessary. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-91(i) explicitly incorporates the broad
review standard established by § 4b-3. Thus § 4b-3 governs the Board’s review
of § 4b-91 No-Bid Construction Contracts, and further provides that if such
review does not occur within thirty (30) days after the commissioner submits the
contract to the Board, the contract shall be deemed to be approved.
While the statutes pertaining to the other three types of contracts do not
explicitly incorporate the scope-of-review standards set forth in § 4b-3(f), the
structure of those statutes does not suggest that a lesser standard of review should
apply. Review of the No-Bid Consultant Contracts authorized by Conn. Gen.
Stat. § 4b-23 was incorporated into the 1975 Public Act that established the
Board. The same public act also established the § 4b-3(f) scope of review
standards. See P.A. 75-425, §§ 1(f), 2(e). The two provisions are linked in the
statutory language and there does not appear to be any basis for applying a lesser
standard of review for the § 4b-23 contracts. The No-Bid Consultant Contracts
authorized by Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 4b-55 through 4b-59 directly link to § 4b-23
and there is no textual statutory basis to treat the two types of No-Bid Consultant
Contracts differently. Finally, considering the statutory scheme as a whole, in the
absence of limiting language, there is no reason a lesser standard of review would
apply to the Design Build Contracts authorized by Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-24b.
Each of the four types of contracts concern unique circumstances, whether
because they are “no-bid” contracts, or are large design-build contracts. Given
the unusual aspects of these types of contracts, Board oversight is consistent with
the overall legislative purpose. The broad standards set forth in § 4b-3(f) should
govern the Board’s review of the No-Bid Construction, No-Bid Consultant and
Design Build Contracts.

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 4

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-91(g) – No-Bid Construction Contracts
Conn. Gen. Stat. §4b-91(g) establishes a process by which the
Commissioner of Administrative Services may enter into a contract to perform
services on certain enumerated types of projects without following the
competitive bidding process. Pursuant to the “no-bid” provisions of Conn. Gen.
Stat. § 4b-91(g), the DAS Commissioner is authorized to select and interview at
least three general contractors who are prequalified by statute and, after a
selection process utilizing a construction services panel, negotiate a contract with
the successful contractor to build specific types of governmental facilities. In
2004, the legislature amended the statute to require that the Commissioner,
prior to entering any such contract or performing
any work on such project, shall submit such
contract to the State Properties Review Board for
review and approval or disapproval by the board,
pursuant to subsection (i) of this section.
Public Act 04-141, §1, codified as Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-91(g) (emphasis added).
Subsection (i), in turn, provides that the Board’s review must be completed in
thirty days or the contract is deemed approved, and that the Board’s review “shall
be conducted in accordance with the provisions of section 4b-3.” Conn. Gen. Stat.
§ 4b-91(i) (emphasis added). Thus, for No-Bid Construction Contracts under §
4b-91(g), the review standards of subsection (f) of § 4b-3 are expressly
incorporated, namely the Board “shall have access to all information, files and
records, including financial records, of the Commissioner of Administrative
Services,” and “shall consider all aspects of the proposed actions, including
feasibility and method of acquisition and the prudence of the business method
proposed.” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f).
Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 4b-23(i) and 4b-55 through 4b-59 – No-Bid
Consultant Contracts
You also ask about two different types of no-bid consultant contracts –
No-Bid Consultant Contracts pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-23(i) and No-Bid
Consultant Contracts pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 4b-55 through 4b-59. Both
types of contracts utilize the definition of consultants set forth in Conn. Gen. Stat.
§ 4b-55(2), namely consultants associated with real estate transactions and

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 5

development.1 The statutes are silent as to their scope of review, but are linked
such that § 4b-23(i) standards also apply to § 4b-58 No-Bid Consultant Contracts.
As explained below, based on the statutory structure and history of legislative
amendments, we see no reason why the scope should be any less than the standard
established by Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f).
a. The No-Bid Consultant Contracts Pursuant to Conn. Gen.
Stat. § 4b-23(i)
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-23(i) authorizes the DAS Commissioner to enter
into no-bid contracts for consultant services for certain specified types of projects.
These consultant contracts “shall be subject to the approval of the Properties
Review Board prior to the employment of such consultant or consultants by the
commissioner.” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-23(i). If the Board’s decision on a
§ 4b-23(i) consultant contract is not made within thirty days, the contract or
selection is deemed to be approved. Id. The text of § 4b-23(i) does not specify
the scope of the Board's review, nor does it expressly incorporate Conn. Gen. Stat.
§ 4b-3(f). However, the timing of its enactment, and related subsequent
legislative history support that the scope of review should be as extensive as that
authorized by § 4b-3(f).
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-23(i) was enacted in 1975 as part of the original Act
establishing the Board, P.A. 75-425. That Public Act, entitled “An Act
Implementing the Report of the Appropriations Committee’s Special
Subcommittee on Leasing,” established the Board and made other statutory
changes to address improper state contracting practices, including political
patronage, cronyism, and collusion, which were exposed by a legislative
investigation into state leasing. See Final Report of the Sub-Committee on
1

The term “consultant” is defined in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-55(2) as
(A) any architect, professional engineer, landscape
architect,
land
surveyor,
accountant,
interior
designer, environmental professional or construction
administrator, who is registered or licensed to practice
such person’s profession in accordance with the
applicable provisions of the general statutes, or (B) any
planner or financial specialist;

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 6

Leasing, Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations, January 7, 1975; Public
Act 75-425.
In forming the Board in P.A. 75-425, the legislature bestowed broad
powers of oversight upon the Board. P.A. 75-425 provided in § 1(f) that the
Board’s review of all real estate acquisitions proposed by the public works
commissioner would “consider all aspects of the commissioner’s proposed
actions, including feasibility of acquisition, method of acquisition and the
soundness of the business method proposed,” and directed that the Board “shall
have access to all information, files and records of the commissioner, and shall,
when necessary, be entitled to the use of personnel employed by the
commissioner.” P.A. 75-425, § 1(f), now codified at Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f).
Thus from the very beginning, the Board was required to evaluate the soundness
of the proposed action, was granted access to all information, files and records,
and was permitted to use agency personnel to assist the Board in its review.
Section 1(f) is the only section of the 1975 Act to specify a scope of review.
In other sections of the Act, P.A. 75-425 simply added the requirement
that the Board review and approve particular types of real estate transactions,
without specifying the scope of the review. See, e.g., P.A. 75-425, §§ 8, 11, 12,
16-19, 25-26, 28-31, 33-36, 41, 48, 51, 53-55. This includes the original
enactment of Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-23(i), P.A. 75-425, § 2(e), that stated:
[a]ny architects, landscape architects, professional
engineers or land surveyors selected by the
commissioner for employment on any project under
the provisions of section 2 of this act shall be
subject to the approval of the properties review
board prior to their employment by the
commissioner.
The consultants encompassed by P.A. 75-425, § 2(e) are professionals directly
connected to the core competency of the Board, namely, real estate transactions
and development.
Moreover, there is nothing in the structure or language of P.A. 75-425 that
would suggest that the references to Board review that do not explicitly define the
scope of review would be any different than the Board review applicable to
review of real estate contracts expressly covered by § 4b-3(f).

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 7

Public Act 75-425, § 2(e) (now codified as § 4b-23(i)) and P.A. 75-425,
§1(f) (now codified as § 4b-3(f)) were closely related. They were both adopted as
part of the same Act and intended to address the same legislative concern that
state contracts were being entered into that were not in the state’s best interest.
Furthermore, § 1(f) of the Act, which set forth the scope of the Board’s review,
specifically referenced § 2 of the Act, of which § 2(e) was a part.
Given the relationship between P.A. 75-425, §§ 1(f) and 2(e), the fact that
both were adopted to address the same concerns with the state contracting
process, and the lack of any other standard of review in Public Act 75-425 or
discussion of any other standard in the Act’s legislative history, we conclude that
the legislature intended no less a scope of review than that set forth in § 1(f) (now
§ 4b-3(f)) to apply to the Board’s approval of consultants’ professional services
under § 2(e) (now § 4b-23(i)).
This conclusion is bolstered by the legislature’s adjustment to the Board’s
review power enacted the following year. In Public Act 76-116, § 1, the
legislature expressly limited the scope of the Board’s review powers when
reviewing Department of Labor (“DOL”) leases funded by federal funds.
Specifically, the legislature required the Board to render a decision within sixty
days and to
issue its approval or disapproval based solely upon
whether the proposed location and rent are
reasonable when comparted to available space and
prevailing rents in the same geographic area.
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-250(c). The proponents of P.A. 75-425 strongly opposed
the change and the bill was passed with repeated assurances that the limited scope
of review only applied to the DOL leases that were entirely federally funded.
19 H. R. Proc., Pt. 4, 1976 Sess., pp. 1382-1386; 19 S. Proc., Pt. 2, 1976 Sess.,
p. 541; 19 S. Proc., Pt. 3, 1976 Sess., p. 1190. In the over forty years since P.A.
75-425 was enacted, P.A. 76-116 is the only provision enacted to limit the scope
of Board review.

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 8

Indeed, there have been at least ten revisions to the original 1975 statutory
language of Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-23(i).2 The gravamen of Conn. Gen. Stat.
§ 4b-23(i), however, remains constant, namely that professional consultant
contracts entered into by DAS are subject to review and approval by the Board.3
If the legislature had wanted to limit or constrict the scope of review of consultant
contracts pursuant to § 4b-23(i), it could have done so at any time over the past
forty-four years and included such restrictions within any of the ten statutory
revisions.
We further note that well-established rules of statutory construction forbid
us to read language into the statute that is not there. See McCullough v. Swan
Engraving, Inc., 320 Conn. 299, 309 (2016). Therefore, we cannot read
limitations into the Board’s powers under § 4b-23(i) that the legislature has
chosen to omit. Furthermore, we must construe statutes relating to the same
subject matter to create a harmonious and consistent body of law. See
Connecticut Housing Finance Authority v. Alfaro, 328 Conn. 134, 143 (2018);
Williams v. City of New Haven, 329 Conn. 366, 378-79 (2018).
Accordingly, because § 4b-23(i) makes no mention of any limitation on
the Board’s review, and § 4b-3(f) is a related statute that expressly describes the
scope of the Board’s review, it seems clear that the legislature intended to apply
that scope of review to such consultant contracts to ensure that the contracts are in
the state’s best interest. We cannot read language into § 4b-23(i) that would
create a new and more limited scope of review, and we conclude that when the
Board reviews consultants’ contracts pursuant to § 4b-23(i), it should apply a
scope of review no less than the standard set forth in § 4b-3(f).

2

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-23(i) is the codification of P.A. 75-425, § 2(e), as modified by
P.A. 76-253, 79-450, 82-446, 96-235, 98-235, 99-241, 07-213, Sept. Sp. Sess. P.A. 09-7,
14-182 and 16-81.
3
In 1991, the legislature eliminated the requirement of Board approval for consultant
selection and architectural design contracts for the DOT as part of § 4b-3(f) but left intact
the requirement of Board approval for DAS consultant contracts pursuant to § 4b-23(i).
See P.A. 91-124, §1; OLR Amended Bill Analysis for Public Act 91-124, SB 706 (File
261, as amended by Senate “A”).

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 9

b. The No-Bid Consultant Contracts Pursuant to Conn. Gen.
Stat. §§ 4b-55 through 4b-59
Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 4b-55 through 4b-59 describe the process by which
the Commissioner of Administrative Services may enter into contracts with
certain other specified consultants. Section 4b-58 states that whenever consultant
services are required for those specified types of projects, the DAS Commissioner
may select and interview at least three consultants or firms and negotiate a
contract with the firm that is most qualified, in the Commissioner's judgment, at
compensation that the Commissioner deems fair and reasonable to the State.
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-58(a)(3). Section 4b-58 requires the Commissioner to
"…notify the State Properties Review Board of the commissioner's action not
later than five business days after such action for its approval or disapproval in
accordance with subsection (i) of section 4b-23." Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-58(a)(3)
(emphasis added). Thus, because § 4b-58 expressly incorporates § 4b-23 the
same review standards apply to both types of consultant contracts. Further, as
discussed above, the legislative structure and history of § 4b-23(i) support a scope
of review standard at least as robust as § 4b-3(f); thus, that same standard also
applies to review of § 4b-58 No-Bid Consultant Contracts.
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-24b – Design Build Contracts
The final statute that you have asked about is Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-24b,
which concerns state design-build construction contracts. Subsection (b) of
§ 4b-24b permits the DAS Commissioner to designate certain state projects to be
built on a total cost basis that covers both the design and construction of the
project. To pursue such a project, the DAS Commissioner selects a developer
from among those recommended by an awards panel and has sole responsibility
for almost all aspects of the contract. Subsection (b) provides, however, that
[n]o such contract may be entered into by the
commissioner without the prior approval of the
State Properties Review Board and unless funding
has been authorized pursuant to the general statutes
or a public or special act.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 4b-24b(b). The text of § 4b-24b(b) imposes no express time
limitations upon its review.

Edwin S. Greenberg, Chairman
Page 10

As with § 4b-23(i), the design-build statutory provisions of§ 4b-24b(b) do
not provide specific guidelines for the scope of review. For the same reasons
discussed above, if the legislature had intended to limit the scope of the Board's
review, it could have done so. Compare Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-250 (limitation to
review of federal leases to the DOL, enacted in 1976, discussed above).

Conclusion
In summary, we recognize that both DAS and the Board play important,
interlocking roles. DAS bears the overall responsibility for managing and
developing the state's real estate. The Board performs a quality control function
with respect to DAS's real estate and development decisions. Under the
legislature's statutory scheme, we conclude that the Board's review of the No-Bid
Construction, No-Bid Consultant and Design Build Contracts may, consistent
with Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4b-3(f), consider "all aspects of the proposed
transactions," and include "access to all information, files and records, including
financial records, of the Commissioner of Administrative Services."

Very truly yours,