FOIL-AO-4093

December 14, 2005

The staff of the Committee on Open Government is authorized to issue advisory opinions. The ensuing staff advisory opinion is based solely upon the information presented in your correspondence.

Dear

I have received your letter in which you asked whether meetings of audit committees created pursuant to legislation recently enacted are subject to the Open Meetings Law. If they do fall within the coverage of that statute, you asked what the "advertising requirements" might be.

In this regard, the audit committee to which you referred is required to be created pursuant to §2116-c of the Education Law, which states in part that "Every school district, except those employing fewer than eight teachers, shall establish by a resolution of the trustees or board of education an audit committee to oversee and report to the trustees or board on the annual audit of th district records..." and that the audit committee "shall consist of at least three members." Although subdivision (4) of §2116-c states that the "role of an audit committee shall be advisory", subdivisions (5) and (6) describe a series of responsibilities imposed on the committee that are integral to the audit process.

The Open Meetings Law applies to public bodies, and from my perspective, an audit committee is clearly a public body required to comply with the Open Meetings Law. Section 102(2) of that statute defines the phrase "public body" to mean:

"...any entity for which a quorum is required in order to conduct public business and which consists of two or more members, performing a governmental function for the state or for an agency or department thereof, or for a public corporation as defined in section sixty-six of the general construction law, or committee or subcommittee or other similar body of such public body."

Judicial decisions indicate generally that advisory bodies having no power to take final action, other than committees consisting solely of members of public bodies, fall outside the scope of the Open Meetings Law. As stated in those decisions: "it has long been held that the mere giving of advice, even about governmental matters is not itself a governmental function" [Goodson-Todman Enterprises, Ltd. v. Town Board of Milan, 542 NYS 2d 373, 374, 151 AD 2d 642 (1989); Poughkeepsie Newspapers v. Mayor's Intergovernmental Task Force, 145 AD 2d 65, 67 (1989); see also New York Public Interest Research Group v. Governor's Advisory Commission, 507 NYS 2d 798, aff'd with no opinion, 135 AD 2d 1149, motion for leave to appeal denied, 71 NY 2d 964 (1988)].

In this instance, however, an audit committee performs critical and necessary functions in the implementation of §2116-c of the Education Law.

In the decisions cited earlier, none of the entities was designated by law to carry out a particular duty and all had purely advisory functions. More analogous to the matter in my view is the decision rendered in MFY Legal Services v. Toia [402 NYS 2d 510 (1977)]. That case involved an advisory body created by statute to advise the Commissioner of the State Department of Social Services. In MFY, it was found that "[a]lthough the duty of the committee is only to give advice which may be disregarded by the Commissioner, the Commissioner may, in some instances, be prohibited from acting before he receives that advice" (id. 511) and that, "[t]herefore, the giving of advice by the Committee either on their own volition or at the request of the Commissioner is a necessary governmental function for the proper actions of the Social Services Department" (id. 511-512).

Again, according to §2116-c, since an audit committee carries out necessary functions in the implementation of legislation, I believe that it performs a governmental function and, therefore, is a public body subject to the Open Meetings Law.

I note, too, that subdivision (7) of §2116-c refers to the ability of an audit committee to conduct executive session to discuss certain matters. That reference in my view indicates a recognition by the State Legislature that such a committee is subject to the Open Meetings Law.

With respect to "advertising" prior to a meeting, I point out that the Open Meetings Law requires that every meeting of a public body be preceded by notice, but specifies that there is no obligation to pay to place a legal notice in a newspaper or to "advertise" a meeting. Specifically, §104 of that statute provides that:

"1. Public notice of the time and place of a meeting scheduled at least one week prior thereto shall be given to the news media and shall be conspicuously posted in one or more designated public locations at least seventy-two hours before each meeting.

2. Public notice of the time and place of every other meeting shall be given, to the extent practicable, to the news media and shall be conspicuously posted in one or more designated public locations at a reasonable time prior thereto.

3. The public notice provided for by this section shall not be construed to require publication as a legal notice."

Stated differently, if a meeting is scheduled at least a week in advance, notice of the time and place must be given to the news media and to the public by means of posting in one or more designated public locations, not less than seventy-two hours prior to the meeting. If a meeting is scheduled less than a week an advance, again, notice of the time and place must be given to the news media and posted in the same manner as described above, "to the extent practicable", at a reasonable time prior to the meeting.

As you may be aware, the phrase "executive session" is defined in §102(3) of the Open Meetings Law to mean a portion of an open meeting during which the public may be excluded. As such, an executive session is not separate and distinct from a meeting, but rather is a portion of an open meeting. The Law contains a procedure that must be accomplished during an open meeting before an executive session may be held. Specifically, §105(1) states in relevant part that:

"Upon a majority vote of its total membership, taken in an open meeting pursuant to a motion identifying the general area or areas of the subject or subjects to be considered, a public body may conduct an executive session for the below enumerated purposes only..."

As indicated in the language quoted above, a motion to enter into an executive session must be made during an open meeting and include reference to the "general area or areas of the subject or subjects to be considered" during the executive session.

It has been consistently advised that a public body, in a technical sense, cannot schedule or conduct an executive session in advance of a meeting, because a vote to enter into an executive session must be taken at an open meeting during which the executive session is held. In a decision involving the propriety of scheduling executive sessions prior to meetings, it was held that:

"The respondent Board prepared an agenda for each of the five designated regularly scheduled meetings in advance of the time that those meetings were to be held. Each agenda listed 'executive session' as an item of business to be undertaken at the meeting. The petitioner claims that this procedure violates the Open Meetings Law because under the provisions of Public Officers Law section 100[1] provides that a public body cannot schedule an executive session in advance of the open meeting. Section 100[1] provides that a public body may conduct an executive session only for certain enumerated purposes after a majority vote of the total membership taken at an open meeting has approved a motion to enter into such a session. Based upon this, it is apparent that petitioner is technically correct in asserting that the respondent cannot decide to enter into an executive session or schedule such a session in advance of a proper vote for the same at an open meeting" [Doolittle, Matter of v. Board of Education, Sup. Cty., Chemung Cty., July 21, 1981; note: the Open Meetings Law has been renumbered and §100 is now §105].

For the reasons expressed in the preceding commentary, a public body cannot in my view schedule an executive session in advance of a meeting. In short, because a vote to enter into an executive session must be made and carried by a majority vote of the total membership during an open meeting, technically, it cannot be known in advance of that vote that the motion will indeed be approved. However, as an alternative method of achieving the desired result that would comply with the letter of the law, rather than scheduling an executive session, a public body on its agenda or notice of a meeting could refer to or schedule a motion to enter into executive session to discuss certain subjects. Reference to a motion to conduct an executive session would not represent an assurance that an executive session would ensue, but rather that there is an intent to enter into an executive session by means of a vote to be taken during a meeting.

I hope that I have been of assistance.

Sincerely,

 

Robert J. Freeman
Executive Director

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