Tomorrow (Thurs., 2/4) at 1:00 PM the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Legal Review and Consumer Protection will hold a public hearing on Senate Bill 55, a bipartisan bill that would modernize the publication of proceedings (minutes) of meetings held by school boards and other governmental bodies.
This bill would authorize school boards (as well as city councils and the boards of villages, counties, and technical college districts) to discontinue paying to publish the proceedings of regular and special meetings in a newspaper by instead posting a copy of the proceedings in a public place, on their website, and transmitting a copy to a newspaper likely to give notice in the school district. With some exceptions, current law requires each of these governmental units to pay to publish proceedings of meetings held by the council or board in a newspaper published in the jurisdiction.
Under the bill, before the governmental unit may discontinue publication in a newspaper, the governmental unit must do the following:
1. Provide 180 days’ notice to the newspaper.
2. Publish two separate notices in the newspaper indicating that it will discontinue publication in the newspaper and will instead post, electronically place, and transmit the proceedings. The governmental unit may discontinue publication of its proceedings 30 days after the second notice required under this provision.
3. Establish an electronic notification service to notify interested individuals and organizations in the governmental unit each time the proceedings are posted, electronically placed, and transmitted.
Generally, proceedings are defined as the substance of every official action taken by a local governing body at any meeting of the governing body.
The WASB supports this bill based on WASB Resolution 1.60 which states:
Elimination/Reduction of Newspaper Notice/Publishing Requirements The WASB supports legislation allowing school districts to publish statutorily-required notices electronically on the school district website and other social media maintained by the school district in lieu of publishing these notices in newspapers. (2016-13)
While the process of moving away from publication in a newspaper is cumbersome, the bill is a move in the right direction and the WASB thanks Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac) and Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du Lac) for authoring this bill and the following bipartisan group of legislators for their support:
Senators Feyen, L. Taylor, Felzkowski, Jacque and Stroebel; Representatives Thiesfeldt, Brooks, Bowen, Gundrum, Horlacher, Krug, Kurtz, Murphy, Rozar, Schraa, Skowronski, Snyder, Spiros, Subeck, Tittl, Mursau, Kuglitsch and Duchow.
