Who owns the float? Three positions, taken from the specifications themselves
Float is the only quantity in a construction schedule that is computed by arithmetic and allocated by contract. The number falls out of the forward and backward pass; who is allowed to spend it does not. And on that second question the public specifications do not agree — not in emphasis, but in principle. One family says float is shared between the parties. A second says it belongs to the project. A third splits it into named classes and gives one of them to the agency outright.
This page sets the three side by side. It does not restate the clause tables on the agency pages; each position links to the page that carries the clause numbers and the reading behind them.
What the two floats are
Total float is how long an activity can slip before it delays the project completion — late dates minus early dates, computed on that activity's calendar. Free float is the narrower quantity: how long it can slip before it delays its own immediate successors. Free float is never larger than the room the network leaves ahead of the activity, and an activity with positive total float and zero free float is one whose successor starts the moment it finishes.
Two consequences of that definition matter for ownership arguments.
Float is a property of a path, not of an activity. Several activities in a chain share one quantity of float. If the first of them consumes it, the rest have none. This is why "the contractor used the float" and "the owner used the float" are usually claims about the same days, counted once and spent twice. NYSDOT states the path definition expressly rather than leaving it to be inferred.
Float is produced by the model, not observed in the world. Change a constraint, a calendar or a lag, and the float changes without a single day of work moving. That is what makes the ownership question contractual: the parties are allocating a quantity one of them computed. See the glossary for the terms and the review checklist for the inventory that shows where a given float value came from.
The three positions
| Position | What the document says | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Shared between the parties | Float is not for either party's exclusive use; each may use what remains until it is gone, and schedule changes made to manipulate it are prohibited | VDOT, WisDOT, WVDOH |
| Belongs to the Project | Float available in the schedule at any time belongs to the Project and is available for both Contractor and Government use | UFGS §3.10; UFGS 01 32 17.00 20 §1.12 for Project Float specifically |
| Split, with one class owned by the agency | Float accrued by the Engineer is the Department's to spend on its own account; early completion time is the Contractor's | Caltrans |
Shared float
Three state specifications read for this site state, in their own words, that float is a shared commodity: neither side holds it exclusively, neither side may take it for its own financial benefit, and either side has the use of what is left until it runs out. VDOT states it as a property of the network shared among all activities and adds an express prohibition on schedule changes made to manipulate float. WisDOT and WVDOH state the shared-commodity form directly in their standard specification books.
The practical content of shared is a race, and the specifications say so by saying that either party may use it until it is depleted. Whoever needs the days first gets them. That is a real allocation rule, not a fudge, and it is why schedules that suppress float are treated as a problem under these documents rather than as a modelling preference.
Project float
The federal Division 01 sections take a different route to a similar practical place. UFGS 01 32 01.00 10 §3.10 states that float available in the schedule, at any time, belongs to the Project and is available for Contractor and Government use — and it distinguishes activity float from project float, project float being the working days between the projected finish and the contract completion date. Its NAVFAC sibling, UFGS 01 32 17.00 20 §1.12, defines Project Float as the span between the Project Completion Milestone and the Contract Completion Date and states it will not be for the exclusive use of either the Government or the Contractor.
Belongs to the Project and shared between the parties are close in effect and not identical in argument. A project-float clause locates the float in the job rather than in either party's account, which is a different premise to argue from when a party claims a right to consume it. The federal sections are quotable at length because they are US Government works; the state specifications on this page are not, which is why they are summarised here rather than reproduced.
Department-owned float: Caltrans is the outlier
Caltrans does not sit on the shared-or-project spectrum. §8-1.02C(8)(c) creates a float class the Department accrues and may spend on its own account, logged through the narrative report; and the same section makes early completion time a resource for the Contractor's exclusive use. Two named owners, each with a stated claim.
What makes this structural rather than doctrinal is §8-1.02C(2)(12): the Department-owned float is required to appear in the schedule, modelled as the predecessor activity to the scheduled completion date. It is not a clause about who may argue for days. It is an activity in the file, with a duration, that a reviewer can point at.
That has a consequence for anyone reading a Caltrans schedule with ordinary tools. An activity sitting in front of the completion milestone with no physical work in it looks, to every generic check, like padding — and under this specification it is the clause being complied with. A tool that reported it as a finding would be reporting the requirement as a defect. The Caltrans page covers what a file can and cannot show about which activity that is: nothing in a P6 export identifies an activity as the Department's float, so identifying it is a reading of the schedule against the contract, not a query.
Why the distinction bites
The regime changes what the same schedule movement means.
Under a shared regime, float consumed by one party's event is simply gone, and the next party to need days finds none. The analysis question is a chronology: what consumed the float, in what order. Neither party has a claim on the float as such; they have a claim about what happened after it ran out.
Under a project-float regime, the float is not in either party's account to begin with, so an argument that the owner "took the contractor's float" needs a different premise — usually early completion, which the federal sections handle separately.
Under the Caltrans split, some of the float has an owner before anything happens. The Department's accrued float is spendable by the Department without that being a taking, and the Contractor's early completion time is the Contractor's without that being a windfall. The analysis has to identify which class of float a given event consumed, which is a question the two other regimes never have to ask.
Across all three, one thing is constant: the regime decides what the days mean, and the regime is a term of the contract. The same network, computed the same way, supports different arguments under different specifications — which is why a delay analysis that does not state the governing float clause has left out one of its premises. See concurrent delay and the delay method comparison for what is built on top of that premise.
Float suppression, and what it looks like in a file
If float is shared, a schedule that shows none has quietly ended the sharing. NYSDOT is the specification on this site that names the practice expressly, and it names three mechanisms: constraints that drive free float to zero, durations padded so that time disappears inside activities, and calendars restrictive enough to absorb time that would otherwise show as float. The clause's stated purpose is that total float genuinely be shared between the Department and the Contractor.
All three mechanisms are visible in the file, and none of them is self-proving:
- Zero-free-float constraints. A constraint inventory shows which activities carry one and what their float is. Constrained activities sitting at exactly zero float are the population the prohibition describes. They are not, by that fact, a breach of it — the federal equivalent at UFGS §3.3.8 prohibits artificial float constraints, and artificiality is intent.
- Padded durations. Visible as a duration profile, and settled only by knowing the quantity of work. A long duration is evidence of nothing on its own.
- Over-restrictive calendars. A calendar inventory shows working days, hours and holidays per calendar and which activities use each. A calendar reflecting a genuine seasonal restriction and one written to absorb float are the same object in the export.
There is a fourth mechanism worth knowing because it is easy to misread: an as-late-as-possible activity is placed against its late dates rather than its early ones, so its own float reads as consumed and its predecessors' float is measured against a position the network did not drive it to. That is a modelling choice with a legitimate use and a float-flattening side effect, and it is why several specifications list ALAP among the constraint types to inventory.
What this tool does, and what it refuses
It computes total float and free float from the imported schedule, on each activity's own calendar, and reports the values.
It reports the machinery behind them: every constraint by type and activity, every calendar with its working time and holidays, the lags, and the scheduling settings the file declares — so a reviewer can see what produced a float value rather than only what it is.
It checks against the clauses of the specification you name, including the float-ownership clause, and cites it.
It refuses to decide who is entitled to consume float. That is a contractual determination and it belongs to the reviewing authority, not to an importer of schedule files. Where a rule needs to know the governing float regime, it says so and names the term that would settle it rather than substituting a default — including where a standard states a default of its own, because a standard's default is a rule about what the contract says, not a fact about your project.
Related reading
- DOT and federal requirements compared — the float-ownership column with every clause number.
- The schedule review checklist — the constraint, calendar and float inventories that show where a float value came from.
- UFGS scheduling requirements — §3.10 and the early-completion provision beside it.
- Caltrans, NYSDOT, VDOT, WisDOT, WVDOH — each agency's own clause.
- Glossary — total float, free float, longest path, data date, constraint types.
Source: web/pages/float-ownership.md. Source commit date: 2026-09-11.