Public-works bond statutes almost all read the same direction: here is what the contractor must provide, and here is the least it can be worth. Connecticut’s reads both ways. It sets a requirement above a figure and then, in the very next subsection, tells the contracting officer what he may not ask for below one.
The requirement, and what it is for
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 49-41(a):
“Each contract exceeding one hundred thousand dollars in amount for the construction, alteration or repair of any public building or public work of the state or a municipality shall include a provision that the person to perform the contract shall furnish to the state or municipality on or before the award date, a bond in the amount of the contract which shall be binding upon the award of the contract to that person, with a surety or sureties satisfactory to the officer awarding the contract, for the protection of persons supplying labor or materials in the prosecution of the work provided for in the contract for the use of each such person”
Three features worth separating.
The duty is on the contract, not the contractor. The contract shall include a provision that the person will furnish a bond. Connecticut regulates the document.
The bond is in the amount of the contract — the full figure, with no percentage language, like Maine’s “full contract amount” under 14 M.R.S. § 871 and North Dakota’s “equal at least to the price stated in the contract” under N.D.C.C. § 48-01.2-10.
It is a payment bond by function. Its stated purpose is the protection of persons supplying labor or materials. The performance obligation is handled separately, which is why the next subsection is about what a performance bond may be required for.
The subsection that limits the officer
“(b) Nothing in this section or sections 49-41a to 49-43 , inclusive, shall be construed to limit the authority of any contracting officer to require a performance bond or other security in addition to the bond referred to in subsection (a) of this section, except that no such officer shall require a performance bond in relation to any general bid in which the total estimated cost of labor and materials under the contract with respect to which such general bid is submitted is less than twenty-five thousand dollars or in relation to any sub-bid in which the total estimated cost of labor and materials under the contract with respect to which such sub-bid is submitted is less than fifty thousand dollars.”
The sentence grants and then withholds. Officers keep broad authority to require a performance bond or other security in addition to the statutory payment bond — and lose it entirely below two figures, one for general bids and a higher one for sub-bids.
That is a protection for small contractors and it points the opposite way from every other provision on this site. Elsewhere a low threshold means the contractor must bond sooner. Here a low figure means the contractor cannot be made to bond at all.
Note the measure: the total estimated cost of labor and materials under the contract, not the bid price and not the contract sum.
Three exemptions, and one of them is a job title
Subsection (a) carries its own carve-outs. No bond need be furnished (1) in relation to a general bid where the total estimated cost of labor and materials is less than one hundred thousand dollars, (2) in relation to a sub-bid on the same measure, or (3) in relation to a general bid or sub-bid submitted by a consultant, as defined in section 4b-55.
The third is unusual. Most exemptions are drawn by contract value; this one is drawn by who the bidder is.
Retainage is capped, and the cap moves at halfway
Connecticut ties retainage directly to the presence of a bond — a link most states do not make at all.
Where a payment bond is required and the contract requires the prime to furnish a performance bond in the full amount of the contract price, then on a contract advertised by the Department of Administrative Services or another state agency:
“(A) the awarding authority shall not withhold more than seven and one-half per cent from any periodic or final payment which is otherwise properly due to the general or prime contractor under the terms of such contract, provided, when fifty per cent of the contract is completed, said amount shall be reduced to five per cent, and (B) any such general or prime contractor shall not withhold from any subcontractor more than (i) seven and one-half per cent from any periodic or final payment which is otherwise due to the subcontractor, or (ii) the amount withheld by the awarding authority from such general or prime contractor under subparagraph (A) of this subdivision, whichever is less, provided, when fifty per cent of the contract is completed, said amount shall be reduced to five per cent.”
Two mechanisms are at work. The cap steps down at the halfway point of the contract, so the money released is tied to progress rather than to completion. And the prime’s withholding from a subcontractor is capped at the lesser of the statutory figure and what the awarding authority actually withheld from the prime — so a prime cannot hold more from below than is being held from above.
The logic is that the bond and the retainage are two protections for the same risk, and the statute is unwilling to let the owner have both at full strength.
Sixty days, then a hundred and eighty
Connecticut’s claim clock is structured differently from the federal one.
“(a)(1) Any person who performed work or supplied materials for which a requisition was submitted to, or for which an estimate was prepared by, the awarding authority and who does not receive full payment for such work or materials within sixty days of the applicable payment date provided for in subsection (a) of section 49-41a , or any person who supplied materials or performed subcontracting work not included on a requisition or estimate who has not received full payment for such materials or work within sixty days after the date such materials were supplied or such work was performed, may enforce such person’s right to payment under the bond by serving a notice of claim on the surety that issued the bond and a copy of such notice to the contractor named as principal in the bond not later than one hundred eighty days after the last date any such materials were supplied or any such work was performed by the claimant.”
Sixty days of non-payment opens the right; one hundred and eighty days from last furnishing closes the window to assert it. And the notice goes to the surety, with a copy to the contractor — the reverse of the federal arrangement at 40 U.S.C. § 3133(b)(2), where the notice goes to the prime.
The section also distinguishes claimants whose work appeared on a requisition or estimate from those whose did not, and starts their sixty days from different events.
Ten percent at the bid, and a fifty-thousand-dollar floor
Everything above comes from Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 49-41 to 49-43, which are the bond sections. Bid security is not in them. It sits in the public-works bidding chapter, Conn. Gen. Stat. c. 60 — a different chapter doing a different job, which is why a state bond guide and a state bid-security rule are two separate reads.
The chapter requires security with the bid and sets its own floor for it:
“Every general bid shall be accompanied by a bid bond or a certified check … provided no such bid bond or certified check shall be required in relation to any general bid in which the total estimated cost of labor and materials under the contract with respect to which such general bid is submitted is less than fifty thousand dollars.”
The amount is not left to the awarding authority. Conn. Gen. Stat. c. 60 fixes the security “in an amount which shall be ten per cent of the bid” — 10 percent, which is the highest bid-security percentage we have read in any state, level with Delaware.
Two forms are named in the same clause, as alternatives of equal standing: a bid bond or a certified check. They are not the same thing to the bidder. A certified check is money deposited with the authority and returned; a bid bond is a surety’s promise, with nothing deposited and nothing to return. Two bidders who have posted “the same” security are in materially different positions.
The consequence of winning and walking away is stated in one sentence: “Failure to execute a contract awarded as specified and bid shall result in the forfeiture of such bid bond or certified check.”
Now set the two floors beside each other, because they do not describe the same band of work. Bid security under Conn. Gen. Stat. c. 60 starts at fifty thousand dollars of estimated labor and materials. The bond requirement in § 49-41 starts at one hundred thousand dollars. A Connecticut general bid between those two figures carries security at the bid and no bond behind the contract — the state wants to know you will sign, and does not require anyone to guarantee that you will finish.
One caution about this chapter, and it is a caution about reading statutes generally. Its text carries amendment history alongside the operative language, and the history records earlier figures that are no longer the rule. What is quoted above is the operative language. The history is a useful cross-check on which way a figure has moved; it is not the requirement, and it must not be read as one.
What §§ 49-41 to 49-43 keep elsewhere
This page reads the bond requirement, the officer’s limits, the retainage caps and the notice of claim. It does not read section 49-41a, which supplies the payment dates the sixty-day clock is measured from, nor section 4b-55’s definition of a consultant, which decides who falls inside the third exemption.
It also does not state the deadline for bringing suit once notice has been served. That is a different provision from the notice period, and it is not on this page.
