I previously provided you a response to me from the District Clerk of the (school district name omitted) regarding her rationale that attachments need not be included on the agenda posted to the website for any agenda items that are not “scheduled for discussion”. You kindly gave me permission to forward your response to the Clerk. Nevertheless, the practice of omitting many attachments continued.
Recently we wrote the District Clerk again and asked for any interpretation of the school attorney that supports her exclusions re attachments. She wrote:
“Mrs. (omitted),
Per consult with our legal counsel:
The Open Meetings Law does not require the Board to post attachments to every agenda item. Section 103(e) of the Open Meetings Law pertains to documents “which are scheduled to be the subject of discussion by a public body during an open meeting.” If the Board does not anticipate that certain documents will be the subject of discussion during the meeting, Section 103(e) does not require that they be posted.
Here is an opinion from the Committee on Open Government which confirms this :
https://docsopengovernment.dos.ny.gov/coog/otext/o5341.htm
This opinion involves Board Meeting minutes and confirms that when they are not scheduled to be discussed during the meeting, “there would be no obligation to post them online prior to a meeting.” This same analysis would apply to any document that is not scheduled for discussion during the meeting.
Thank you.”
I am making two assumptions about her response:
1) I believe the link cannot be accessed because it is not available on the OML website since it is prior to 1993 and no longer consistent with the 2021 amended law.
2) I also believe that their claim re public agenda items “not scheduled for discussion” violates the parliamentary procedures per Robert’s Rules that they adopt Policy #103.01 re Public Meetings. Unfortunately, their approach, of which they speak with pride, is that they consistently vote unanimously on all public resolutions. How would they know they don’t “anticipate discussion” of a particular item unless they previously reviewed the items together away from the board table? Further, all public agenda items are subject to parliamentary procedure that allows any board member to discuss a resolution once it is moved and seconded.
Are these two assumptions correct?
As you point out I don’t see how a 1993 opinion by the Committee on Open Government is relevant.
The law requiring meeting documents to be posted online did not come about until 2011. The law requiring meeting minutes to be posted online did not occur until 2021.
Whatever documents board members have received regarding agenda items should be posted online for the public to see. If the board is voting on a contract and a copy of the contract has been provided to the board members for the meeting, then the contract should be posted online.
I find it hard to believe that board members are voting on agenda items without having documents for each item. This is not a hard concept, simply scan the board packet and post it online, boards all across the state do this. The Amherst town board sometimes posts over one thousand pages of a meeting agenda and documents online.
I don’t know about your parliamentary procedure assumption.
Public Officers Law § 103(e) requires public bodies to post any document available under FOIL, “as well as any proposed resolution, law, rule, regulation, policy or any amendment thereto, that is scheduled to be the subject of discussion by a public body during an open meeting . . . to the extent practicable at least twenty-four hours prior to the meeting during which the records will be discussed.”
Below are opinions from the Committee on Open Government, which may be helpful:
