Recovery schedules: what triggers one, who decides, and how long you get
A recovery schedule is the submission an agency asks for when the current schedule says the project will finish late. Almost every scheduling specification read for this site has a clause of this kind, and no two of them draw the trigger in the same place.
That divergence is the subject of this page. The threshold can be a number of days behind, a proportion of contract time, a change in the work, or the reviewer's own judgement that the schedule is unsound — and the clock to submit runs from 7 calendar days to 10 business days depending on which document governs. The comparison hub carries the full requirement for each agency; this page follows one clause across all of them.
A note on the word. Several agencies do not use it. What some books call a recovery schedule, others call a revised schedule, a recovery plan, a supplemental progress schedule or a Revised Baseline — and in two cases the function is carried by an update trigger with no separate submission at all. This page reports what each document calls the thing and what obliges it. It does not treat a document with no such clause as deficient; a specification is entitled to leave the remedy to the general provisions of the contract.
The triggers, side by side
| Agency | What obliges a recovery or revised schedule | Clause |
|---|---|---|
| WVDOH | Any one of three: a delay greater than 10 calendar days in completing any critical activity; work performed in a sequence or manner varying from the Schedule; or activities added, deleted or revised by contract modification | §108.3.5 |
| WisDOT | Any one of three: completion targets delayed 14 calendar days on calendar-day contracts or 10 working days on working-day contracts; progress differing significantly from the current schedule; or a change order adding, deleting or revising activities so as to change the work sequence | §108.4.4.5 |
| PennDOT | A controlling activity 14 days or more late against the Required Completion Date or a specified Milestone Date as adjusted | 108.03(b)5 |
| CDOT | Seven named major changes, including the Engineer determining that the schedule has a fatal flaw — see below | 108.03(h) |
| MDOT SHA | An update calculating Substantial Completion more than 30 days past the contract date; separately, out-of-sequence progress unresolved 30 days after the activity started | §109.03.02.03, §109.03.02.02(c) |
| NYSDOT | Work on the current schedule delayed ten percent or more beyond the required Contract duration or a specified Milestone duration | Item 639 paragraph L.1 |
| VDOT | No clause of that name. A Revised Baseline Progress Schedule on the Engineer's written request, or where the Contractor proposes to work significantly differently from the Schedule of Record | Category III II.4 |
| MnDOT | Departure substantially from the current sequence or durations; the Department's request, including to show how a missed milestone is to be recovered, or where actual work differs substantially from the schedule; or a contract revision changing sequence or method. In the bar chart tier, a projected finish more than 7 calendar days late | §1803.3B.5, §1803.2B.5 |
| NJDOT | The project falling behind for delays that are not excusable, such that completion is forecast late | 153.03.02, 153.03.03 |
| SCDOT | Two routes: the narrative itself carries a recovery plan whenever the project is behind the accepted baseline; separately, the performance provisions request one when the Schedule Variance Index falls into stated bands | Schedule Narrative; Contract Performance Action |
| UFGS 01 32 01.00 10 | Progress falling behind for reasons that are not excusable | §3.9 |
| Caltrans | No recovery-schedule clause was found in §8-1.02C | Not stated in this provision |
| TxDOT | No recovery-schedule clause. The schedule is revised on a phasing or sequencing change, or any other deviation from the original schedule | 5.5.2.3 |
| WSDOT | No recovery-schedule clause was read. Four update triggers carry the function, one of them with a defined "significant" threshold | 1-08.3(3) |
| ADOT | No slippage trigger. The 30-day revised schedule is periodic; notice of proposed major changes is a separate obligation | §108.04, §108.03 |
| NAVFAC 01 32 17.00 20 | Not stated in this section | Not established |
How long you get, and who starts the clock
| Agency | Who decides it is required | Time to submit |
|---|---|---|
| WVDOH | The Engineer must request it once a condition is met | 7 calendar days from the written request |
| PennDOT | The Representative may require it | 7 calendar days from notification |
| VDOT | The Engineer, by written request; or the Contractor initiates | 7 days on the Engineer's request; the Contractor's route needs 14 days' written notice, with a 7-day agency response |
| CDOT | The Engineer, by written notification | 10 days from written notification |
| WisDOT | The Engineer | 10 business days |
| NYSDOT | The Engineer may require it | Not established |
| MDOT SHA | The Administration may request a revision | Not established |
| MnDOT | The Department, or the Contractor's own intention | Not established |
| NJDOT | The Resident Engineer may require one, alongside directing more shifts, overtime, extra days or additional plant | Not established |
| UFGS | The Contracting Officer may require a written recovery plan | Not established |
| Ohio DOT | Required where the schedule projects a finish more than 14 calendar days past the Completion Date; the Engineer may also order an update where progress has fallen more than 14 calendar days behind the latest accepted schedule | Not established |
Every "not established" is a clause that was not read, not a finding that no clock exists.
Colorado's seven triggers, and the one nobody else has
CDOT's 108.03(h) is the longest trigger list of the documents read, and it is built differently from the rest. Where most agencies name a slippage threshold, Colorado names changes in the work and adds one that is not about the work at all:
- Significant logic or construction-method changes, or a change to the critical path.
- A Contract Modification Order that adds, deletes or revises activities.
- A Value Engineering Change Proposal being approved.
- Milestones, or completion of the project, running late.
- A revision to the phasing.
- The Engineer determining that the schedule has a fatal flaw.
- Work that cannot be constructed as scheduled.
The sixth is the outlier across all sixteen documents. Six of the seven can be evidenced by comparing two schedule files or by pointing at a contract document. The sixth cannot: it is a reviewer's determination about the network itself, with no threshold, no definition of the flaw and no route through a number.
That is worth stating without a verdict attached. A trigger that rests on a determination is not checkable from a file, and this project does not attempt it — it reports what an imported schedule contains and cites the clause. Whether a schedule carries a fatal flaw is the Engineer's determination under 108.03(h).
The federal clause forecloses the cheap route
UFGS 01 32 01.00 10 is a United States Government work, so its recovery clause can be quoted rather than characterised. §3.9 lets the Contracting Officer require a written recovery plan detailing how progress will be made up where progress has fallen behind for reasons that are not excusable, and §3.9.3 provides for a recovery schedule under FAR Clause 52.236-15. §3.9.1 then closes the obvious shortcut:
Artificially improving progress by means such as, but not limited to, revising the schedule logic, modifying, or adding constraints, shortening activity durations, or changing calendars in the project schedule is prohibited.
And anything the plan proposes in resources, manpower or work hours "must be evident at the work site and documented in the daily report."
Those two sentences are the only place in the sixteen documents where the means of recovery is regulated rather than the deadline for producing one. It matters because every item in that list is a change a scheduler can make in an afternoon, and each of them moves the calculated finish date without moving any work. The paired requirement — that added resource be visible on site and in the daily report — is what makes the prohibition operable, because it asks for evidence outside the file for a change made inside it.
Three of those four mechanisms leave marks a comparison of two files can find: logic changes, constraint additions and duration reductions are all visible when one schedule is set beside its predecessor. A calendar change is visible too. What no file settles is why any of them was made. This project reports the differences between two schedules and cites the clause; the determination is the Contracting Officer's.
The three that carry the function without the clause
Three documents have no recovery-schedule clause and are not silent on the problem.
WSDOT puts the whole weight on its four update triggers at 1-08.3(3), one of which is significant delay — and unusually, it defines the word. Significant means the greater of 10 working days or 10 percent of original contract time. A maximum of two tests rather than a single threshold is rare in this family of documents: on a short contract the day count binds, and on a long one the percentage does, so a 400-working-day contract reaches the threshold at 40 working days rather than at 10. A schedule that does not provide the required information is returned for correction and resubmittal.
TxDOT requires revision on any deviation from the original schedule, built from the latest preceding update, and attaches no slippage number. The consequence is that Texas asks for the same artefact whether the project is ahead or behind: the revision documents the change, and any question about recovering time travels through the four-step time impact analysis at 5.5.4 instead. See time impact analysis.
ADOT asks for a revised schedule every 30 days regardless of progress, plus a weekly two-week look-ahead, with a separate obligation to give written notice of proposed major changes. Nothing in Section 108 as read establishes a fixed baseline for later submissions to be measured against. An agency that restates its plan monthly and an agency that holds a baseline and measures drift from it are doing different things with the same file.
Two agencies that make it a narrative obligation
SCDOT does not wait for a request. The narrative required with every monthly update carries a recovery plan whenever the project is behind the accepted baseline, which makes recovery a standing content requirement rather than an event. Separately, the contract performance provisions request a recovery plan when the Schedule Variance Index falls into stated bands, with escalation on a second occurrence — including a bonding notification held while the plan is monitored. See the schedule narrative requirements and the SCDOT page.
WVDOH's narrative reports progress along the critical path in days ahead of or behind, with corrective action, every month — so the same document that triggers §108.3.5 also records whether its threshold has been reached.
What a file can evidence and what it cannot
Several triggers above are comparisons between two schedules, and that is computable: a delay to a critical activity, a change to the critical path, a departure from the accepted sequence, movement in a forecast completion date and a change in logic or durations are all visible when an update is set beside the schedule it succeeds. This project computes and reports those differences — see what the engine does.
What it does not settle:
- Whether a delay is excusable. Three of the triggers above turn on it — NJDOT's, UFGS §3.9's and, by implication, several others. That is a determination under the contract.
- Whether a request was made. Most of these clauses are permissive: the Engineer may require a recovery schedule. Nothing in a file records that.
- Whether a duration was shortened artificially. A file records that a duration changed and cannot record the intention behind it.
- Whether a schedule has a fatal flaw, in CDOT's sense.
None of the thresholds on this page is this project's threshold, and nothing here states what a schedule ought to contain. See limitations.
Related pages
- How the sixteen specifications compare.
- Baseline schedule submission — the deadlines a recovery clause is measured against.
- Time impact analysis requirements · schedule narrative requirements.
- Activity durations and logic restrictions — the mechanics a recovery submission still has to satisfy.
- Agency detail: CDOT · PennDOT · UFGS · VDOT · WisDOT · WSDOT · WVDOH.
- Extension of time · acceleration and disruption · glossary · limitations.
Source: web/pages/recovery-schedules.md. Source commit date: 2026-09-11.