Connecticut meeting minutes and votes: what they must include and when they are due
Short answer
Each member's vote on every issue is put in writing and open to the public within 48 hours, and recorded in the minutes. The minutes are open to public inspection within 7 days of the meeting. After a special or emergency meeting, those days leave out Saturdays, Sundays, legal holidays and days the office is closed. Draft minutes made available on time meet the deadline.(Conn. Gen. Stat. § 1-225(a) and (g))
Where this fits in your meeting cycle: Clarivis is software that helps a board follow these steps: it counts the deadline for each meeting's agenda or notice, shows when each regular meeting's minutes are due and drafts the minutes for your board to correct and approve; it does not file or post anything for you.
See how Clarivis helpsQuestions on this page
When must the minutes be available?
Statute text
“Not later than seven days after the date of the session to which such minutes refer, such minutes shall be available for public inspection and posted on such public agency's Internet web site, if available, except that no public agency of a political subdivision of the state shall be required to post such minutes on an Internet web site”
Within 7 days of the meeting. For a regular meeting, every day counts: minutes of a Monday meeting are available by the Monday after. For a special or emergency meeting, Saturdays, Sundays, legal holidays and days the office is closed are left out of the count:
Statute text
“In determining the time within which or by when a notice, agenda, record of votes or minutes of a special meeting or an emergency special meeting are required to be filed under this section, Saturdays, Sundays, legal holidays and any day on which the office of the agency, the Secretary of the State or the clerk of the applicable political subdivision or the clerk of each municipal member of any multitown district or agency, as the case may be, is closed, shall be excluded.”
A town board does not have to post its minutes on a website; it may.
What must the minutes and votes record?
Statute text
“The votes of each member of any such public agency upon any issue before such public agency shall be reduced to writing and made available for public inspection within forty-eight hours and shall also be recorded in the minutes of the session at which taken.”
So each member's vote on every issue, by name, in writing within 48 hours and again in the minutes. "The motion carried" is not enough. At a meeting where any member took part online, a vote that is not unanimous is taken by roll call, and the minutes list who attended in person and who online; see the remote participation guide.
The law does not require the minutes to name a member of the public who speaks. At an online meeting, anyone who speaks is asked to make a good faith effort to state their name. Nobody has to give a name to attend.
Do the minutes have to be approved by then?
No. The law asks that the minutes be open to inspection within 7 days; it names no approval step. Draft minutes made available on time meet the deadline. The board can approve them at a later meeting. The draft is your board's to review, correct and approve.
Are minutes filed with an office?
Not for a regular or special meeting. Minutes of an emergency meeting are, with the town clerk:
Statute text
“a copy of the minutes of every such emergency special meeting adequately setting forth the nature of the emergency and the proceedings occurring at such meeting shall be filed with the Secretary of the State, the clerk of such political subdivision, or the clerk of each municipal member of such multitown district or agency, as the case may be, not later than seventy-two hours following the holding of such meeting”
What about executive session minutes?
They are a separate record, and they list who was there:
Statute text
“the minutes of such executive session shall disclose all persons who are in attendance except job applicants who attend for the purpose of being interviewed by such agency”
More in the executive session guide.
Checklist after each meeting
- Each member's vote in writing and open to the public within 48 hours.
- Minutes record each member's vote on every issue.
- Minutes open to public inspection within 7 days; after a special or emergency meeting, not counting Saturdays, Sundays, legal holidays or days the office is closed.
- Emergency meeting: minutes stating the emergency filed with the town clerk within 72 hours.
- Executive session minutes list everyone who attended, except job applicants being interviewed.
What the law does not settle
These are questions to take to your town counsel; this guide does not answer them.
- Whether the rule that leaves out Saturdays, Sundays, holidays and days the office is closed also applies to a regular meeting's agenda and minutes. This guide counts every hour for the agenda and every day for the minutes. For the minutes that already gives the earlier date; for the agenda, a cautious board files as if those days were left out, which is earlier.
- Whether, and when, executive session minutes may be withheld from the public; that turns on the public records sections of the Act.
How Clarivis helps
Clarivis drafts; people decide. Your board reviews, corrects and approves the minutes.
- Records and transcribes the meeting, then drafts minutes from the transcript for your Committee Admin or Editor to read, correct and approve.
- Shows when a regular meeting's minutes are due, and flags them if they are not marked available in time. Draft minutes made available on time meet the deadline.
- Shows the law's words for a special meeting's minutes and for the 48-hour votes, without a date, because it cannot see the days an office was closed or when the votes were made available.
Related guides
- Connecticut meeting agendas and notices: the yearly schedule, and what to file before each meetingThe yearly schedule, the regular agenda, the special notice, the 24-hour count
- The yearly meeting schedule in Connecticut: what a board files by January 31The January 31 filing and the 30-day wait
- Executive session in Connecticut: when a board can meet in private, and what followsThe five purposes, the two-thirds vote, who attends, the minutes
- What counts as a meeting in Connecticut: quorum, email and chance encountersQuorum, email, and what the law leaves out
- Online and phone meetings in Connecticut: notice, public access and recordingOnline meetings: notice, public access, votes and recording
This guide for other states
Sources
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 1-225, Meetings of government agencies to be public: www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_014.htm