What counts as a meeting in Connecticut: quorum, email and chance encounters
Short answer
In Connecticut, a meeting is any hearing or other proceeding of a public agency, any gathering of a quorum of a multimember board, and any communication by or to a quorum, in person or by electronic equipment, about the board's business. A chance or purely social meeting is not one. The Act does not define a quorum; the number comes from outside it, such as the town charter.(Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 1-200(2), 1-228)
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
What is a meeting under the Act?
Three things count, each when it is about a matter the board has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power over:
Statute text
“Meeting” means any hearing or other proceeding of a public agency, any convening or assembly of a quorum of a multimember public agency, and any communication by or to a quorum of a multimember public agency, whether in person or by means of electronic equipment, to discuss or act upon a matter over which the public agency has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power.
So a meeting does not need a vote; discussing the board's business is enough. And a board that only advises still has meetings. Every meeting is open to the public except an executive session. For closing part of a meeting, see the executive session guide.
Does a work session or workshop count?
Yes, when a quorum convenes to discuss or act on the board's business. The definition covers "any convening or assembly of a quorum", and it does not matter what the gathering is called. A retreat, workshop or briefing at which a quorum meets to discuss the board's business is a meeting, with the same agenda or notice and the same minutes. See the notice guide.
What is a quorum?
The Act uses the word without defining it. The definitions in § 1-200(1), (2) do not give a number. The Act mentions the word again when it says:
Statute text
“Less than a quorum may so adjourn from time to time.”
So the number comes from outside the Act: the town charter, an ordinance, or the law that created the board. On a seven-member board whose charter sets a majority, that is four. If you are not sure which number applies to your board, ask your town counsel.
Can members discuss board business by email, text or phone?
The definition reaches "any communication by or to a quorum ... whether in person or by means of electronic equipment". A discussion of board business among a quorum of members, by email, message or call, can be a meeting even though nobody is in the same room. The Act defines the equipment:
Statute text
“Electronic equipment” means any technology that facilitates real-time public access to meetings, including, but not limited to, telephonic, video or other conferencing platforms.
Whether an exchange of emails fits that definition is not settled (see below). The safe course for members between meetings:
- Use email to settle a date, time or place, and nothing more.
- Send information to the chair, secretary or clerk, who includes it in the meeting packet, rather than to the whole board.
- Do not "reply all" with views on an item the board will decide. Save it for the meeting, where the public can hear it.
- If someone starts a discussion by email, do not answer on the thread. Say it belongs at the next meeting.
What does the Act leave out of a meeting?
Six things:
Statute text
“Meeting” does not include: Any meeting of a personnel search committee for executive level employment candidates; any chance meeting, or a social meeting neither planned nor intended for the purpose of discussing matters relating to official business; strategy or negotiations with respect to collective bargaining; a caucus of members of a single political party notwithstanding that such members also constitute a quorum of a public agency; an administrative or staff meeting of a single-member public agency; and communication limited to notice of meetings of any public agency or the agendas thereof.
Two of these matter most to a volunteer board. Members who run into each other in a store are not holding a meeting. And a message that only gives notice of a meeting or sends its agenda is not one either. Neither lets members plan to talk board business together and call it social.
What if members attend another board's meeting?
Statute text
“A quorum of the members of a public agency who are present at any event which has been noticed and conducted as a meeting of another public agency under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act shall not be deemed to be holding a meeting of the public agency of which they are members as a result of their presence at such event.”
So a quorum of your board sitting in the audience at another board's meeting that was noticed and held under the Act is not a meeting of yours. Members should still not use it to discuss their own board's business among themselves.
Does a subcommittee have its own meetings?
Yes. The Act counts a committee as a public agency, including one a board created:
Statute text
“including any committee of, or created by, any such office, subdivision, agency, department, institution, bureau, board, commission, authority or official”
So a quorum of the subcommittee convening to discuss its work is a meeting of the subcommittee, with its own agenda or notice and its own minutes.
Checklist
Items marked (safe course) are good practice, not the statute's words.
Between meetings
- (Safe course) Email and phone among members only to schedule a meeting.
- (Safe course) Information for the board goes to the chair, secretary or clerk for the packet, not to everyone.
- (Safe course) No "reply all" with views on business the board will decide.
- (Safe course) No chain of one-to-one conversations that reaches a quorum on an item.
Before a work session, retreat or workshop
- Noticed like any other meeting, with the business described.
- Minutes will be kept (§ 1-225(a)).
At the meeting
- (Safe course) Every member recorded present, remote or absent.
- (Safe course) Count the members present against your board's quorum, from its charter or enabling law, before business that needs a vote.
What the law does not settle
Questions to take to your town counsel; this guide does not answer them.
- Whether an exchange of emails or text messages among a quorum is a communication "by means of electronic equipment", given the Act's definition of that term.
- Whether a chain of one-to-one conversations that together reach a quorum is a meeting.
- Whether a vote taken with fewer than a quorum present is valid for your board.
- Whether a vacant seat counts toward "the membership" when the quorum is counted.
- Which quorum number applies when the charter, an ordinance and the board's own rules disagree.
- When a chance meeting or a social gathering not planned to discuss business becomes a meeting because members start discussing it.
How Clarivis helps
Clarivis does not see email or messages between members and does not tell you whether a gathering was a meeting. At the meeting itself, it helps the record show who was there.
- Attendance for every member. In Live Meeting, each member is recorded present, remote or absent, and remote is never folded into present.
- No quorum finding for Connecticut. Clarivis raises no below-quorum item for Connecticut boards; a Committee Admin or the Clerk can still set the committee's number in Settings, then Committee, for the attendance count.
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
- Connecticut meeting minutes and votes: what they must include and when they are dueMinutes within 7 days, each member's vote within 48 hours
- Executive session in Connecticut: when a board can meet in private, and what followsThe five purposes, the two-thirds vote, who attends, the minutes
- 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. § 1-200, Definitions: www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_014.htm
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 1-228, Adjournment of meetings: www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_014.htm