PAC Issues 12th Binding Opinion on "Personnel" Exception to OMA
The Illinois Attorney General's PAC office recently issued its 12th binding opinion for 2018, finding a public body in violation of the Open Meetings Act for improperly discussing its budget, layoffs, and related matters in closed session during a board meeting. PAC Op. 18-012.
A union president filed a complaint with the PAC office alleging that the Board of Trustees of Western Illinois University violated the OMA when it went into closed session to discuss reducing the salaries of all librarians and laying off other employees. The union argued that the discussion of classes of employees rather than specific employees was not within the scope of the OMA exceptions. The University Board responded that the Board did, in fact, discuss specific employees during closed session, and that discussion falls within the scope of section 2(c)(1) of the OMA that authorizes the discussion of compensation, performance, hiring, and dismissal of specific employees.
The PAC disagreed with the University, finding that although the Board of Trustees did discuss one specific employee during closed session, the majority of the discussion concerned budgetary matters and considerations applicable to categories of employees, which the PAC said was outside the scope of 2(c)(1). The PAC also stated that the discussion of an elimination of a job or position for budgetary reasons unrelated to the performance of the employee does not fall within the scope of 2(c)(1). The PAC concluded that the Board of Trustees' closed session discussion exceeded the scope of the OMA's exceptions, and violated the OMA. The PAC ordered the public body to release a copy of the closed session minutes and verbatim recording, except for that portion that discussed a specific employee.
Although the PAC's opinion regarding budgetary discussions being outside the scope of the OMA's exception is not new (the PAC has issued previous opinions on this issue), the broad statement that a public body cannot discuss the dismissal of a specific employee unless the reason is performance-based seems inconsistent with the unambiguous language of 2(c)(1), which states as follows:
(1) The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity. However, a meeting to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the Local Government Wage Increase Transparency Act may not be closed and shall be open to the public and posted and held in accordance with this Act.
The language clearly allows discussion of the dismissal of specific employees without any qualification that the dismissal be performance-related - the statute uses the word "or" between "performance" and "dismissal" and does not contain language that a discussion of the dismissal of an employee be for "performance-related" reasons. This opinion seems to narrow the scope of 2(c)(1) beyond the clear language of that exception.
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