The New Year Begins with a Statewide Push to Increase Public Disclosure and Government Transparency

On January 3, 2012, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a new law which further expands the Open Meetings Law. Chapter 603 of the Laws of 2012 will take affect on February 2, 2012. Symbolically, the law starts 2012 with an increased movement toward making government even more transparent. The law requires the online posting or advanced access to materials used in open meetings prior to the meeting taking place. The stated purpose of the law is to create more engagement and awareness of public meeting discussions, activities, and actions. This proactive disclosure has been strongly supported and recommended by the New York State Committee on Open Government.

Specifically, the law calls for agency records, proposed resolutions, policies, laws, regulations and any other materials that are to be the subject of discussion by a public body (i.e., town boards, school boards, zoning committees, etc.) during an open meeting to be made available prior to the session by posting the records on the agency’s regularly and routinely updated website or by providing hard copies in advance of the meeting upon request at a reasonable fee. The types of documents to be disclosed are those documents that would normally be available to the public. In sum, municipalities must provide advanced web access to documents that the public would be able to view by hard copy. The best test to implement the new law is to simply consider what documents would be subject to release if a member of the public filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for such documents. While the Public Officers Law is fairly open in regards to documents available to the public, some items are exempted, such as  information pertaining to legal matters, ongoing investigations/reports, certain personnel matters, and litigation, to name a few.

The law does not say how far in advance of a meeting such documents must be posted; however, best practice would be to make such documents available at or around the time that such documents are provided to board members or trustees. 

The new law will likely have little impact on those covered agencies that have already implemented best practices by utilizing technology to make its materials available to the public. The law, however, could have a much larger impact on those agencies that do not have a website or do not routinely draft resolutions and other meeting materials in advance of their open sessions.

Fortunately, for those agencies that would find implementation of these new requirements an unfunded mandate or unduly burdensome in this time of limited resources, the legislation allows the respective agency itself to meet the requirements only “to the extent practicable” as determined by the agency or the department. In addition, the law states that an agency may, but shall not be required to, expend additional money to implement the new provisions.

For additional information regarding the Open Meetings Law, please contact Patrick M. Malgieri at (585) 419-8665 / pmalgieri@harrisbeach.com, or Karlee S. Bolanos at (585) 419-8742 / kbolanos@harrisbeach.com, co-leaders of the Municipalities and Quasi-Governmental Agencies Team, or Laura M. Purcell, leader of the Educational Institutions Industry Team, at (585) 419-8730 / lpurcell@harrisbeach.com, or the Harris Beach attorney with whom you usually work.

This alert does not purport to be a substitute for advice of counsel on specific matters.

Harris Beach has offices throughout New York state, including Albany, Buffalo, Ithaca, Lockport, New York City, Niagara Falls, Rochester, Saratoga Springs, Syracuse, Uniondale, Yonkers, and White Plains, as well as Newark, New Jersey, and New Haven, Connecticut.