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A bill draft from Nevada’s attorney general may propose stiffer penalties for public officials who violate the state’s open-meeting law.
During a meeting Wednesday, the attorney general’s Open Meeting Law Task Force — of which I am a member — looked at several possible changes to the law, including raising the fine for violations to $1,000 on a second offense and $2,500 for a third offense.
At the same time, board members would face no fine if they relied on incorrect legal advice from their attorney in committing a violation.
Those are among amendments to the statute (NRS241) that may end up being proposed by the Attorney General’s Office in a bill drafted for the next legislative session, which begins in February 2019. The task force, headed by Deputy Attorney General Caroline Bateman, plans to meet once more before draft language is submitted to the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
They arise largely from a variety of cases the past two years that ranged from some misunderstandings to a few repeat offenders.
Other changes under consideration:
— Requirements for allowing participation by the public in meetings being held by teleconference or videoconference.
— Clarifying that any action arising out of an attorney-client session — sometimes referred to as non-meetings — must be taken in an open meeting under the law.
— A definition of “supporting materials” that must be made available to the public when they are provided to board members.
— Removing from OML requirements any “trainings” that do not involve deliberations by board members. An example would be training on open-meeting law by the Attorney General’s Office.
— Clarifying that subcommittees with a quorum of board members are considered public bodies, which are covered by the law.
— Changes in the deadlines for filing open-meeting complaints. In general, the AG Office is looking for more flexibility in when it must investigate complaints and respond to boards that want to acknowledge they made an unintentional error. The proposed language also would remove deadlines on when the AG’s Office could investigate any violation committed “in a secret manner.”
