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There are Attorney General (AG) opinions in which the Attorney General opines that a public entity may enter a contract with a responsive low bidder for a public works contract and then execute a "delete change order" in a reasonable sum to bring projects within budgeted funds. See AG Op. No. 95-0028, AG Op. No. 94-0195, and AG Op. No. 93-0118. However, none of those opinions dealt with a sole bidder or a factual circumstance where the public entity made an error estimating the funds available for the project when drawing the bid specs. In fact, those opinions dealt with public entities that received multi bids that all came in over the budgeted amount.
In this case, the entity drew bid specs for a project based on a $10 million error and only received 1 bid. The entity should either (1) seek an AG opinion on the specific facts or (2) rebid the project taking into account that they only have $32 Million Dollars for the construction, which would necessarily include new bid specs for the bidders to review. The rebidding would seem to insulate them from any public bid challenges.
The AG in these opinions cautioned against a public entity allowing a lowest bidder from abusing its position in reducing the costs of the project. Further, the AG noted that a public entity can always reject all bids under R.S. 38:2214(B) and re-evaluate the project before re-advertising.
Our office would caution a public entity from relying too heavily on these older opinions as the Attorney General may no longer consider the use of a delete change order as viable given subsequent changes to the requirements for change orders under the Public Bid Law and the inclusion of alternate bidding
Louisiana Legislative Auditor website: 04/25/2026 09:49:11 AM
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