Baseline schedule submission: deadlines, review periods, and what is withheld
The baseline is the one submission every scheduling specification has an opinion about. It is due on a clock that starts at a named contract event, it is reviewed by the agency inside a stated window, and in eight of the documents read for this site something is withheld until it arrives — payment, the right to begin work, or both.
This page follows that one submission across sixteen public-agency scheduling documents plus four further states read for the comparison hub. Each agency's page carries the whole requirement; this one compares a single clause.
Read the clock start, not just the number. Fifteen days from contract execution, fifteen days from Notice of Award and fifteen days from the actual Notice to Proceed are three different dates, and the documents below use at least six distinct starting events. Two use no day count at all.
Part one: the deadlines
| Agency | Preliminary or interim schedule | Baseline or complete schedule | Clock starts at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caltrans | Time-scaled logic diagram within 5 business days; preconstruction scheduling conference within 10 days | No separate day count established; the baseline's data date must be the Contract approval date | Contract approval |
| NYSDOT | Optional Draft Baseline, commented on within 5 Work Days | Baseline Progress Schedule ten Work Days after the contract award is received | Receipt of award |
| VDOT | Preliminary within 15 days of execution, or 7 days before beginning work, whichever is first | Baseline within 60 days | Contract execution |
| WisDOT | Initial work plan at least 14 calendar days before the preconstruction meeting; bi-weekly bar chart updates until the CPM schedule is accepted | Initial CPM schedule within 30 calendar days | Notice to proceed |
| WVDOH | Optional 60-day Preliminary Construction Schedule within 30 calendar days | Detailed Schedule within 60 calendar days; the official Schedule complete within 90 calendar days | Contract award |
| ADOT | None | Progress schedule at the preconstruction conference; no separate day count stated | The conference itself |
| MnDOT | Preliminary Schedule; its acceptance conditions the first notice to proceed | Baseline; its acceptance conditions the second notice to proceed | Neither is a day count |
| NJDOT | Preliminary within 15 days, covering at least the first 90 days (120 above $40 million) | 14, 21, 28 or 35 days after the preliminary is approved, by construction cost band | Contract execution, then approval |
| SCDOT | None | Within 15 calendar days of execution or 15 days before the preconstruction conference, whichever is first; A+B projects at least 15 days before that conference | Contract execution |
| MDOT SHA | Type C may submit a preliminary CPM schedule to start work sooner, buying a 90-day window | Initial schedule and narrative within 20 days | Notice of Award |
| TxDOT | Preliminary 7 calendar days before the preconstruction meeting, covering 90 calendar days | Baseline for review within 45 calendar days; an acceptable baseline before the 90th | Work start date |
| WSDOT | Types B and C: preliminary at 10 calendar days, which may cover only the first 60 working days and must show the critical path | Type A at 10 calendar days; Types B and C complete at 30 calendar days | Contract execution |
| PennDOT | 60 Calendar Day Work Plan at the preconstruction conference, resubmitted bi-weekly until acceptance; Bid Preparation Schedule within 30 calendar days of execution | CPM Schedule within 30 calendar days after the actual Notice to Proceed; Narrative tier within 15 | Actual NTP |
| CDOT | Preliminary within 14 days of award, covering the first 60 days | Baseline within 45 days of award; a Contractor declining the preliminary submits the full Baseline at 14 days instead | Contract award |
| UFGS 01 32 01.00 10 | Preliminary within 15 calendar days after the NTP is acknowledged, detailing the first 90 calendar days | Initial Project Schedule within 42 calendar days after NTP is issued | Two different NTP events |
| NAVFAC 01 32 17.00 20 | None stated | Baseline network analysis schedule within 30 calendar days | Contract award |
Four further states read for the hub require no CPM schedule and still set a baseline clock: Florida at 21 calendar days after award or at the preconstruction conference, whichever is earlier; Ohio at or before the preconstruction meeting; Georgia immediately after Notice to Proceed is received; and Illinois after award and before starting work.
UFGS is the one to read twice. §3.4.1 runs from the date the NTP is acknowledged and §3.4.2 from the date it is issued. Two clocks, two events, 27 calendar days apart in the specification's own numbering — and because the section is a United States Government work the sentences can be checked directly: "Submit the Initial Project Schedule for approval within 42 calendar days after notice to proceed is issued."
Minnesota is the one with no clock at all. §1803.3B.1 and B.2 make acceptance of the Preliminary Schedule a condition of the first notice to proceed and acceptance of the Baseline a condition of the second. The consequence is structural rather than punitive: the project does not advance to its next authorisation until the schedule is accepted, so there is no deadline to miss and nothing to withhold.
Part two: review periods and what is withheld
| Agency | Agency review period | What is withheld until the baseline arrives or is accepted |
|---|---|---|
| WVDOH | 14 calendar days on the detailed Schedule | Payment is withheld after 90 calendar days from award until the Schedule has been reviewed |
| CDOT | Not to exceed 10 days, with three dispositions: approved with no exceptions taken, approved as noted, or revise and resubmit within 10 days | The Preliminary Schedule is approved before work commences; once 60 days have passed from the start of Contract Time, further partial payments stop until the Baseline is approved |
| MDOT SHA | 20 days from submittal | Work may not begin before the initial schedule is accepted unless the Engineer directs otherwise in writing; where nothing has been accepted within 90 days of Notice to Proceed, work and contract-wide progress payments are held |
| TxDOT | 15 calendar days on the baseline; comments answered within 10 | An acceptable baseline must be in place before the 90th calendar day from the work start date |
| PennDOT | 14 calendar days | Missing the 30-day CPM deadline obliges the Contractor to attend a scheduling workshop to prepare an acceptable schedule; current estimate payments may be withheld |
| NYSDOT | Acceptance not to exceed 40 Work Days from Notice of Award | Beyond mobilisation, procurement and erosion control, work may not start until the baseline is submitted and free of the paragraph I.1 immediate-rejection deficiencies |
| SCDOT | Review comments within 10 business days; the Contractor responds within 5 | Work does not start before the baseline is accepted |
| WSDOT | 15 calendar days, for Type A and the Type B progress schedule alike | Not established |
| MnDOT | 7 business days on updates; resubmission inside 3 | Acceptance of each schedule conditions a notice to proceed |
| MDOT SHA (GP-8.04) | — | The procurement officer may withhold progress payment estimates, or terminate for default, where the progress schedule does not arrive |
| Caltrans | Not established | Not established |
| VDOT | Not established | Not established |
| WisDOT | Not established | Not established |
| ADOT | Not established | Not established |
| NJDOT | Not established; the baseline clock runs from approval of the preliminary | Not established |
| UFGS | Not established for the baseline itself | "No payment will be made for work items not fully detailed in the Project Schedule" (§3.4.2); the Contracting Officer may withhold 10 percent of a pay request where directed revisions are not incorporated (§3.2.3) |
Among the four states with no CPM requirement, Ohio withholds estimates until the bar chart schedule is accepted and gives the Engineer 14 calendar days to accept or comment; Georgia makes no payment while a schedule or a revised schedule is outstanding; Illinois makes no payment until a schedule has been submitted for approval; and Florida gives the Engineer 15 calendar days, with an inadequate schedule returned and a corrected one due in 15.
"Not established" throughout means the clause was not read. It is not a finding that nothing is withheld — several of these books carry general payment and default provisions that were outside the scheduling sections read.
The payment gate is the sharp end, and it has three shapes
Eight documents attach money to this submission, and they do it in three distinct ways that are worth separating, because the consequences differ.
A gate on the calendar. WVDOH's §108.3.1 and MDOT SHA's §109.03.01.04 both key on a 90-day mark measured from a contract event — award in West Virginia, Notice to Proceed in Maryland. The obligation is a date, and nothing about the project's progress changes it. CDOT's is the same shape with a different number: once 60 days have passed from the start of Contract Time, partial payments stop until the Baseline is approved.
A gate on the work itself. NYSDOT, SCDOT, CDOT's preliminary schedule and MDOT SHA's initial schedule each bar the start of work rather than the flow of money. NYSDOT's is the most precisely drawn: mobilisation, procurement and erosion control may proceed, and everything else waits on a baseline free of nine named deficiencies.
A gate on the content. UFGS §3.4.2 is different again and easy to read past. It withholds payment not for a late schedule but for work items not fully detailed in the schedule that exists — so the consequence scales with the gap rather than switching on at a date. §3.2 states the underlying principle plainly: "The schedule is the basis for determining contract earnings during each update period and therefore the amount of each progress payment."
And one that is neither. PennDOT's consequence for missing the 30-day CPM deadline is attendance at a scheduling workshop to prepare an acceptable schedule, with withholding available alongside it. Of the twenty documents read, it is the only remedy that is a meeting.
None of these is characterised here as stronger or weaker than another, and nothing on this page recommends a deadline. They are what the documents say.
Two structural differences worth noticing before comparing numbers
A tiered baseline is not one deadline. NJDOT's Table 153.03.01-1 gives four construction cost bands 14, 21, 28 and 35 days to submit the baseline after the preliminary is approved — so the same clause gives a small contract and a large one different dates, and the second clock does not start until the agency has acted on the first. WSDOT, MDOT SHA, PennDOT, SCDOT and TxDOT all tier their requirements too, but by schedule type rather than by the deadline: which type applies decides what must be in the submission, not when it is due.
A preliminary schedule is not a small baseline. Several of these documents let the preliminary cover only an opening window — 90 calendar days in UFGS, TxDOT and NJDOT; 60 days in CDOT and PennDOT; the first 60 working days in WSDOT — with a summary or generalised schedule for the balance. Comparing a preliminary deadline in one book against a complete-schedule deadline in another compares two different artefacts.
What this project can and cannot check here
A schedule file carries its data date. It does not carry the date it was submitted, the date of contract award, execution, Notice of Award or Notice to Proceed, whether it was accepted, or on what date. Every deadline and every review period on this page is a fact about a submission rather than about a schedule, so this project does not check them, and its silence about them is not a statement that they were met. The WVDOH page states the same point about its own staircase of clocks.
What an imported file does settle is the content side: whether the network carries the activities, logic, calendars, constraints and cost fields the baseline clauses describe, and what changed between one submission and the next. That is what this engine computes and reports — see what the engine does, how to read a report and limitations.
Which clauses govern a particular project is a fact about its incorporated contract documents — the edition named, the special provisions, and for several of these agencies the schedule type or level the procurement selects. An agency's name does not settle it.
Related pages
- How the sixteen specifications compare — the source of every row above.
- Recovery schedules — what happens after the baseline stops describing the work.
- Schedule narrative requirements — what accompanies the submission.
- Activity durations and logic restrictions — what the baseline itself has to satisfy.
- Time impact analysis requirements.
- Agency detail: CDOT · MDOT SHA · MnDOT · NJDOT · NYSDOT · PennDOT · SCDOT · TxDOT · UFGS · WVDOH.
- Schedule formats · the XER format · glossary.
Source: web/pages/baseline-schedule-submission.md. Source commit date: 2026-09-11.