| Are the committees of the Cannon Falls Community Hospital Board in compliance with Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13D, when they meet in closed session? |
Discussion:
The parties agree that the Board is subject to the OML. The question before the Commissioner is whether committees of the Board are subject to the OML.
Section 13D.01, subdivision 1 states in pertinent part:
All meetings, including executive sessions, must be open to the public ... when required or permitted by law to transact public business in a meeting...
(c) of any
(1) committee,
(2) subcommittee,
(3) board,
(4) department, or
(5) commission,
of a public body...
The express language of the statute requires open meetings for any type of committee transacting public business.
The committees at issue are described as standing committees. According to the Board, the Hospital District bylaws require that standing committees be established by Board resolution. No resolutions were provided to the Commissioner so there is no way to determine if the standing committees have been created as required by the bylaws nor is there a way to determine what authority has been granted to the standing committees by the Board.
The Board indicated that the standing committees are responsible for management liaison, collection of information, and formulation of issues and recommendations for the Board. The Board takes the position that these activities do not give the standing committees sufficient authority to require that the committees comply with the OML. In support of its position, the Board references two decisions by the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Each of the cases will be discussed and analyzed in turn.
The first case, Minnesota Daily v. University of Minnesota, 432 N.W.2d 189 (Minn. Ct. App. 1988), involved the Presidential Search Advisory Committee (PSAC) that was created in 1988 to provide advice and consultation to the regents of the University on the selection of the next president. PSAC was made up of faculty, student and staff members and its duties included the screening of applicants and creating a short list of finalists. PSAC's decisions were subject to review by the regents. At open meetings, PSAC established general procedures and adopted an evaluation system for candidates. Once specific candidates were to be discussed, PSAC meetings were closed. The Minnesota Daily sued alleging violations of the OML.
The district court found that the OML did not apply to PSAC as it was not a committee of the regents. The Court of Appeals agreed finding that PSAC did not have the power to decide who the new university president would be and so was not transacting the public's business. As a result, PSAC did not have to comply with the OML.
The Minnesota Daily case is not dispositive here, as the Board's standing committees are not performing a one-time function as was PSAC. Instead, the standing committees are performing tasks that relate to the ongoing operation of the Cannon Falls Hospital District. Examples of these tasks include directing the appraisal of the chief executive officer, developing meeting agendas for the Board, doing an annual review of governance effectiveness, defining quality as it relates to the operational functioning of the hospital district, assessing the adequacy of the quality improvement plan, preventing or detecting and reporting violations of applicable laws and regulations, developing financial performance indicators and analyzing and presenting major capital plans.
In order to complete these tasks, the standing committees of the Board will need to receive information and analyze it in order to make recommendations to the Board. The very nature of this process requires that the standing committees make decisions about what should or should not be communicated to the Board. Ms. Workman indicated that when a committee has considered an issue, there is very little discussion by the Board about that issue. This appears to indicate that the Board has delegated to the committees the responsibility to make recommendations on which the Board will act without much deliberation. This is the type of conduct that the Minnesota Supreme Court warned governing bodies to avoid when using committees. See Moberg v. Independent School District No. 281, 336 N.W.2d 510, 517 (Minn. 1983). Given the nature of the work assigned to the standing committees and the level of responsibility placed in them by the Board, the committees are transacting public business and so must comply with the OML.
Sovereign v. Dunn, 498 N.W.2d 62 (Minn. Ct. App. 1993) is the second case referred to by the Board as supporting its conclusion that the OML does not apply to its standing committees. Kenneth Sovereign alleged that the City of Lake Elmo had violated the OML when the mayor and a member of the city council attended a series of mediation sessions that were not open to the public. The purpose of the mediation sessions was to resolve an annexation dispute between Lake Elmo and the City of Oakdale.
In upholding the district court's dismissal of the action, the Court of Appeals found that because less than a quorum of the Lake Elmo City Council was involved in the meetings and because the two-member delegation from Lake Elmo did not have the power to bind the City, the OML did not apply. Sovereign at 67. Again, the findings in Sovereign are not directly applicable to the Board in this case.
Much as in the Minnesota Daily case cited above, the Sovereign case involves a committee acting on an ad hoc basis--not as a standing committee such as those under consideration here. The finding in Sovereign with respect to the quorum issue is not applicable here - a quorum of the standing committee is needed to transact the business of the committee.
This case is more like that of St. Cloud Newspapers, Inc. v. District 742 Community Schools, 332 N.W.2d 1 (Minn. 1983). There, the Court found that a meeting of the school board for the St. Cloud area school district to discuss long-range planning was a meeting for which notice had to be given, in compliance with the OML. While the St. Cloud case is different from this one in that all members of the St. Cloud school board participated in the meeting, it is similar to this case in that the standing committees of the Board receive information that may influence later decisions of both the committee and the Board. The Court in St. Cloud held that when this type of information is to be received, the OML applies. St. Cloud at 6.
In the case before the Commissioner, the standing committees are transacting the business of the Hospital District and its Board. By the express terms of the OML, the standing committees must comply its requirements. The OML was enacted for the public benefit and is liberally construed in favor of openness. St. Cloud at 4-5; Sovereign at 66; Minnesota Daily at 191. Therefore, the meetings of the standing committees must be open to the public unless there is an express statutory provision that authorizes or requires that the meeting, or a portion of a meeting, be closed.
Opinion:
Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue that Ms. Workman raised is as follows:
| The committees of the Cannon Falls Community Hospital Board are not in compliance with Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13D, when they meet in closed session. |
Signed:
Dana B. Badgerow
Commissioner
Dated: April 18, 2005
