The Texas Open Meetings Act​

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• House Bill 2840: Public Comment on Agenda Items, Texas Municipal League Legal Staff Updated April 23, 2020

  • House Bill 2840: Public Comment on Agenda Items Zindia Thomas, TML Assistant General Counsel July 2019

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• Notice Provisions under the Act / Texas Municipal League > Texas Open Meeting Act Laws Made Easy  

  • Where and for how long must an open meeting notice be posted? The Act requires that the notice for each open meeting be posted on a bulletin board at a place readily accessible to the public at all times in the county courthouse, school district’s central administrative office or various locations for districts or political subdivisions that extend into a certain number of counties. A city can post its notice on a physical or electronic bulletin board at a place readily accessible to the public at all times in the city hall. 551.043 The notice must be posted for at least 72 hours before the scheduled meeting. 551.043
        Certain governing bodies that maintain an Internet website are required to concurrently post a notice or an agenda on the Internet. Once those governing bodies make a good-faith attempt to post their notice on the Internet for the required time, the governing bodies satisfy the requirement of having the physical posting accessible to the public at all times, and the physical posting only has to be readily accessible to the public during the governing bodies’ normal business hours. 551.043
        Notice for an emergency meeting must follow the same procedure. However, the notice is only required to be posted one hour before the scheduled meeting, and it must state the reason for the emergency meeting. Texas Municipal League

  • Is a governing body or an economic development corporation required to publish notice on its Internet website? The Act requires cities, counties, school districts, junior colleges, junior college districts, economic development corporations and regional mobility authorities to publish notice of its open meetings on its Internet website, if it maintains an Internet website. 551.043 and 551.056 Additionally, the following governing bodies or economic development corporations are required to post their agenda, on their Internet websites: 1. A city with a population of 48,000 or more...

  • 11. What information is required to be in the posted notice under the Open  Meetings Act?  The Act requires that the posted notice of an open meeting contain the date, hour, place and subject of each meeting. 551.041

  • 12. How specific does the subject of the posted notice need to be? The subject of the posted notice has to be sufficient to alert the public, in general terms, of the subjects that will be considered at the meeting. [Tex. Att’y Gen. Op. No. H-662 (1975).] However, descriptions such as “old business,” “new business,” “other business,” “personnel” and “litigation matters” are usually not sufficiently detailed to meet the requirements of the Act. Also, the more important the particular subject is to the community, the more specific the posted notice must be. [Point Isabel Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Hinojosa, 797 S.W.2d 176 (Tex. App. — Corpus Christi 1990, writ denied).] Thus, the phrase “employment of personnel” was held to be a sufficient posting for hiring a school teacher. However, the same court found that this phrase was not sufficient when the school was considering hiring a key supervisor such as a principal. Finally, a governmental body must be sure that its postings are consistent with prior practice. [River Rd. Neighborhood Ass’n v. S. Tex. Sports, 720 S.W.2d 551, 557 (Tex. App. — San Antonio 1986, writ dism’d w.o.j.).] For example, a Texas court has ruled that a notice calling for “discussion” of a certain item was not sufficient to allow a board to take action on that item when the board’s previous notices had always explicitly stated when an action might be taken. 

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