Public board operations, explained.

From setup to published minutes

BoardVoice follows the same record lifecycle a public body follows. You can stop after any stage and return later; drafts do not become public until an authorized user publishes them.

1. Set up the organization and its boards. Add each public body separately so its roster, calendar, records, and assigned administrators remain properly scoped.
2. Assign access and officers. Invite the people who prepare records, administer an individual board, or oversee the organization. Officer titles describe board service; application permissions control what a person can change.
3. Schedule the meeting. Open Calendar, choose a date and meeting type, and select Schedule meeting.
4. Prepare the agenda. Edit the recurring structure, attach public or board-only material, save the draft, and publish only when the notice is ready.
5. Invite participants. Send the packet to the appropriate board members and confirm that the correct board is selected.
6. Conduct the meeting. Open Meeting Mode, select the presiding officer, take attendance, choose Start Meeting, and advance through items while recording motions, votes, recusals, notes, and action items.
7. Prepare draft minutes. End the meeting and choose Save as Draft Minutes or generate the printable minutes document.
8. Record the board’s action. After the board formally acts on the minutes, use Record Board Action. A staff action in BoardVoice does not substitute for the board’s approval.
9. Publish the approved record. Review the final public version, then publish and notify subscribers when that option is enabled.

Before, during, and after a meeting

1. Before: use the meeting invitation or board portal to review the agenda and board-only packet material assigned to your board.
2. During: follow the active agenda item, participate in motions and roll-call votes, and state a recusal when required by your board’s policy or applicable law.
3. After: review minutes or complete a configured signature request. A signature records the assigned signer’s action; formal approval remains the board action recorded for the meeting.

If you serve on more than one board, confirm the board name in the page header before viewing restricted material or taking action.

Understanding the Open Meetings Act

Every state has laws governing meetings of covered public bodies—often called an Open Meetings Act or Sunshine Law. Which bodies are covered, how much agenda detail is required, where and when notice must appear, and which exceptions apply vary by jurisdiction.

The notice clock varies by state. Most states require 24, 48, or 72 hours of advance notice for a regular meeting. A few outliers:

• Michigan — 18 hours (MCL §15.265). Posted publicly at the principal office of the public body.
• California — 72 hours for the Brown Act (Cal. Gov. Code §54954.2).
• Illinois — 48 hours for ordinary meetings (5 ILCS 120/2.02).
• Hawaii — 6 days (HRS §92-7).

Some laws distinguish an annual schedule for regular meetings from additional notice required for special, rescheduled, recessed, or emergency meetings. The distinctions and posting locations matter; configure BoardVoice to support the process your public body has verified.

Consequences vary and may include court orders, invalidation proceedings, civil remedies, or other sanctions. Treat a timing flag as a prompt for review—not as a legal verdict.

BoardVoice can display a timing calculation and reference citation beside the record. It cannot evaluate every statutory exception, posting method, local rule, or factual circumstance.

Public records & FOIA, in plain English

Every public board produces records — agendas, minutes, contracts, payroll, correspondence, calendars, emails. State public-records laws (often called FOIA, after the federal model) say residents have the right to ask for those records. Same idea everywhere; deadlines differ.

Start with the clock your own law creates. A useful request workflow records when a request was legally received, the initial response deadline, any permitted written extension, and the final disposition. Those events—and even the definition of “received”—vary by jurisdiction.

For example, Michigan generally requires a response within 5 business days and permits one written extension of not more than 10 business days under MCL §15.235. That example should not be applied to another state or to a body governed by a different rule.

What makes a request workable. Requirements vary by jurisdiction. A clear written request with reliable contact information and a reasonably specific description is usually easiest to track and fulfill. Verify whether your law permits oral or anonymous requests and what identifying information, if any, may be required.

What can be withheld. Exemptions are jurisdiction-specific and fact-specific. They may address privacy, privileged communications, security-sensitive information, or other protected material. Verify the governing statute and obtain counsel when needed rather than relying on a category name alone.

The four-stage minutes workflow

Minutes aren't notes. They're the legal record of what a public body decided. Most state OMA statutes require minutes to be available for public inspection, often within a defined window after the meeting (Michigan: 8 business days for proposed minutes, 5 business days after the next meeting for approved minutes).

A clean minutes workflow has four stages — and an audit trail at each step:

1. Draft. The clerk (or the secretary running the meeting) types up what happened. Motions made, who moved, who seconded, the tally, and any tabled items. This is a draft — not yet binding.
2. Awaiting Approval. The draft is finalized and queued for the next meeting. Most boards include "Approval of Previous Minutes" as a standing agenda item.
3. Board-Approved. The board votes to approve the minutes — usually with corrections noted in the new meeting's minutes. Once approved, they become the board-approved record, subject to any correction procedure required by applicable law or policy.
4. Published. The approved minutes are posted publicly, typically with subscriber notification, and made available and retained according to the organization’s adopted records policy and legal duties.

The reason this matters: if a decision is ever challenged in court, the approved-and-published minutes are the evidence. If a clerk skipped the approval step or never published, the board's defense gets harder.

Two-click meeting scheduling

The thing that eats a clerk's day isn't writing minutes — it's building the next agenda. Every meeting of the same type uses the same skeleton (Call to Order, Roll Call, Approval of Minutes, Public Comment, Old Business, New Business, Adjournment) and the same handful of recurring sub-items. A clerk who rebuilds that from scratch every two weeks is doing the same setup work fifty times a year.

BoardVoice collapses the scheduling and agenda-drafting steps into the calendar itself:

1. Click an empty date on the admin calendar.
2. Pick the meeting type (Regular, Special, Workshop, etc.) and time. Hit "Schedule meeting."
3. You land on the new meeting's agenda editor with every item from the last meeting of that same type already in place — exactly as you published it last time. Edit what's different, leave the rest.

For a township that runs a Regular Township Board meeting, a Planning Commission meeting, and a Board of Review meeting on three separate calendars, the system does the right thing automatically: each board's "copy previous" pulls from that board's most recent meeting of the matching type, not a mix.

Multi-board organizations

Most public agencies don't operate just one board. A township typically runs:

• Township Board — the main elected body
• Planning & Zoning Commission — appointed, usually monthly
• Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) — appointed, meets as needed
• Board of Review — meets in March on assessment appeals
• Plus committees: Parks, Water & Sewer, Election Commission, etc.

A school district might run a main School Board, a Foundation board, a curriculum committee, a finance committee, and a facilities committee. A committee or related board may be a separate public body depending on how it was created, its authority, membership, and governing law. When separate treatment is required, BoardVoice can keep its agendas, minutes, vote records, and configured notice references scoped to that board.

BoardVoice can organize related public bodies under one organization while preserving separate board pages, schedules, rosters, and records. See the pricing page for the current plan structure.