TALLAHASSEE — Florida Department of Transportation officials are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to bidders who fail to win major contracts.

Now DOT wants the legislature to give it the authority to do what it's been doing for five years.

"We may not have had the authority" to issue the stipends of $100,000 to $200,000 on contracts that range from bridges to sidewalks, said Kevin Thibault, the DOT's assistant secretary for engineering and operations. The contracts are worth $10 million to $100 million.

Thibault also acknowledged that DOT officials don't know the exact amount they've spent paying the losers during the past five years but said the total probably ranged from $1 million to $1.5 million.

The compensation is necessary, Thibault said, to lure vendors and to give the department the ability to recycle ideas from rejected bidders.

The Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee attached an amendment to a behemoth transportation bill that would grant DOT the authority to "pay a stipend to unsuccessful firms who have submitted responsive proposals for construction or maintenance contracts."

The amendment does not include a cap on how much the department could pay the losing bidders.

The committee passed the amendment to the bill (SB 1978) with no discussion but is reconsidering the bill today over another issue in it.

Senate Majority Leader Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden, filed the amendment as a courtesy to the bill's sponsor, Sen. Carey Baker, but when asked about it later said he was unaware it included the provision allowing the department to pay losing bidders.

Baker, R-Eustis, said he asked Webster to offer the amendment at the request of DOT and that it would save taxpayer money.

"It increases the number of competitive bids," Baker said. "This actually ensures ... that taxpayers are getting a fair deal."

Prospective vendors spend up to four times the amount of the stipends to create bid proposals because of engineering and research costs, DOT's Thibault said.

The department offers the compensation to the final three bidders only on design-build contracts, in which one company designs and constructs the project. The contracts are awarded by a point system that factors in price and technical components.

The payments are necessary not only to lure bidders but also as an incentive to ensure they submit accurate proposals, Thibault said.

"If I don't give him a little bit of incentive and a little bit of time, he's going to give me a larger bid than I want," he said.

The Department of Management Services, which negotiates and issues contracts on behalf of some other agencies, often issues requests for bids that require vendors to put up money up front to ensure that they have the financial wherewithal to complete the project. The Department of Management Services has never paid a stipend to a losing contractor, spokesman James Miller said.

"Obviously, we don't have those contracts. No one here is really familiar with that at all," Miller said.

"It sends up some flags," said Rep. Jack Seiler, D-Fort Lauderdale, who questioned the proposal this week but said he was "comforted" by DOT's explanation why the agency needs the authority.

Seiler said the legislation should include limits on how much DOT can pay the losing bidders and give lawmakers broader oversight of the spending.

"We need to be accountable to the general public as to how those funds are spent, and DOT needs to be accountable to us as to how those funds are spent," he said.