Senate advances bill updating open-meeting rules, requires more access for some public bodies

The Vermont Senate on the floor advanced S55, a package of changes to the state's open-meeting law intended to preserve public access while recognizing differing capacities of public bodies.

Senator Madison, sponsor of the government-operations committee report, told colleagues the bill seeks "to ensure government transparency and accountability and underscores the public's right to know what its government is doing." She said the bill defines "advisory body" and distinguishes advisory from non-advisory bodies when setting permitted meeting modes.

Under S55 as presented, state-level non-advisory boards (for example, the State Board of Education, the Green Mountain Care Board and other boards with legislative or quasi-judicial authority) would be required to offer hybrid meetings and to record and post meetings for at least 30 days after approval of minutes "if feasible." Advisory bodies would generally have more flexibility to meet remotely, in-person or hybrid. Sponsor remarks stressed the distinction was meant to account for towns and local boards that lack broadband, staffing or website capacity.

The bill also includes an "access request" process: a resident who cannot attend a meeting in the mode chosen by a public body may request access in writing at least three days in advance, and the body must provide a feasible means of participation (phone, FaceTime or other workable technology). Exceptions apply to special meetings, emergency meetings and field visits where providing immediate access may be impracticable.

S55 requires annual open-meeting law training for chairs of local non-advisory bodies (town chairpersons, town managers and mayors) and chairs of state non-advisory boards. It preserves prior emergency authority allowing fully remote meetings during states of emergency and adds a definition of a "local incident" — weather events, power or telecommunications outages and other local disruptions — that permits short-term fully remote meetings when in-person access is impeded.

Senators asked a series of technical questions on the floor. One senator asked whether the committee considered recording executive-session dialogue and retaining recordings accessible to a judge but not the public; the sponsor said hearings had not taken testimony on that narrowly tailored option. Other members sought and received clarifications that field visits are excepted from recording requirements and that the "if feasible" standard for posting recordings is deliberately non-prescriptive to accommodate smaller towns that lack websites or bandwidth.

The Appropriations Committee removed and set aside the bill's appropriations language as customary; the Senate adopted the Appropriations Committee's amendment and further amendments to the government-operations report. The presiding officer announced the body had "ordered third reading" of S55.

The bill sets out a number of implementation requirements and reporting obligations and leaves some operational details to rulemaking and committee work. The sponsor said the committee would continue to refine details as the bill proceeds.

The Senate adopted the committee report and ordered third reading; no final passage vote on S55 occurred during this floor session.