Board freely uses exemptions to state’s open-meetings law
Ohio’s open-meetings law says anyone can go to almost any meeting of a public body, but that doesn’t mean they can see the sausage-making in action, especially at state universities.
The law allows closed-door meetings — “executive sessions” — to discuss specific topics, but people shut out of those meetings have no way to verify what’s being discussed.
At Ohio State University, the Board of Trustees typically holds five, multi-day meetings per year. The full board has gone behind closed doors at every meeting since at least 2011 — at least 46 times.
And at most meetings, several of the board’s committees hold their own executive sessions. In all, counting the full board and committees, there have been nearly 140 closed-door meetings of Ohio State trustees since 2011.
Trustees at Ohio University and Kent State University also have executive sessions of the full board and/or committees at every meeting, but fewer than at Ohio State.
What’s the big secret? Often, trustees say, it’s a discussion about an employee’s hiring, firing, promotion, discipline or pay. Ohio State is often likely to say that trade secrets are being discussed, another allowable exemption from the open-meetings law.
The law also allows public bodies to meet privately to discuss buying or selling real estate; pending or imminent litigation; collective bargaining; security arrangements; or “matters required to be kept confidential by federal law or regulations or state statutes.”
Tim Smith, an emeritus professor of journalism at Kent State and a lawyer specializing in open-government law, said he believes the executive-session privilege is used excessively, particularly by university trustees. “It’s because they’re usually business people,” he said. “They’re not used to being called into question and held publicly accountable.”
As a student reporter at Ohio State in the 1960s, before Ohio’s open-meetings law, Smith covered trustees meetings for The Lantern, Ohio State’s student newspaper.
“It was an exercise in futility,” he said. “They all came down the night before. They had a nice, big dinner and they worked everything out. At the meeting the next day, they just ratified everything on the agenda.”
Smith said things haven’t changed much since the state’s open-meetings law took effect. “The problem with the Ohio law is the loophole is big enough to drive a semi through,” he said.
The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) sees no problem with frequent closeddoor meetings. Trustees need confidentiality for issues such as a president’s performance and potential real-estate deals, association President Rick Legon said.
Legon’s group, based in Washington, D.C., said that Ohio State’s trustees are doing a good job governing one of the nation’s largest institutions and plans to honor them soon for their performance. He didn’t release the details of the upcoming award.
Lawyer Alex Shumate, who has served several terms as an Ohio State trustee over 28 years and is currently the board chairman, said the size and complexity of Ohio State sometimes demand confidentiality.
“Governing a large and comprehensive research university with a prominent medical center can be a complex endeavor,” he said in an email. He said trustees are accountable to the people of Ohio and take their responsibility seriously. “In my years on the board ... (it) is and has been committed to transparency, and only uses executive sessions when doing so would best serve the interests of the university and the people we have been appointed to serve.”
As executive director of the Ohio Newspaper Association, Dennis Hetzel is a publicrecords and open-meetings advocate, but he conceded that Ohio State “deserves some slack” over meetings closed to deal with the high volume of lawsuits, property deals and medical center matters that the university faces.
Still, he said, the sheer volume of closed meetings at Ohio State, and general absence of debate or dissenting votes in the open meetings, is notable.
“Democracy is designed to be messy,” Hetzel said. “Open meetings are a place for people to get mad and for compromise and debate to emerge. It’s not supposed to be easy and convenient, with decisions all worked out beforehand.”