ALBANY COUNTY — Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law today that requires all public bodies that have a website to post the minutes of any meeting within two weeks of that meeting online.

The law is effective immediately.

Meeting minutes were already required to be made available within two weeks of a meeting under Open Meetings Law, but, since there was no requirement to post them online, members of the public sometimes had to travel to town hall or make requests to see them.

Locally, it can take towns several months to post minutes, in part because clerks will wait for minutes to be adopted at a subsequent meeting, usually one month later. 

The bill, which was written by Assembly Member Amy Paulin, states that an analysis of 20 local governments by the New York State Coalition for Open Government found that only 30 percent of those governments posted minutes of a previous meeting before the next one took place.

The legislation originated from the New York Coalition For Open Government, according to Paul Wolf, president of the coalition.

“Given COVID-19, individuals are at an immense disadvantage because there is no in-person opportunity to attend meetings and traveling to the public body’s office to make a request for the meeting minutes presents unnecessary risk,” the law’s justification section reads, in part. “Therefore, it is important that public bodies make meeting minutes available online so the public can safely and effectively access them.”

The law allows for “unabridged audio recordings or unabridged written transcripts” to be posted instead of traditional minutes.