Comptroller’s Report: DA’s Conference has been violating Open Meetings law

Just days after the District Attorneys General Conference pushed a bill through committee to exempt many of their meetings from the Open Meetings Act, a Comptroller’s audit of the DA’s General Conference was released that found that the conference and its committees have largely been violating the open meetings act.

The Open Meetings Act requires governing bodies, including governing bodies created by the Legislature, such as the district attorney general’s conference, to give adequate public notice of meetings and record and maintain minutes.

However, the DA’s Conference gave public notice for only a handful of its meetings from 2021 to 2023. For example, its executive committee met 30 times but only gave public notice for eight meetings. The regular full conference met six times and gave notice for only two of its meetings. The pattern continued into early 2024, the audit noted.

“By not following the Open Meetings Act, the conference creates a lack of transparency around its decision-making process that could result in a lack of public trust,” the audit said.

DA’s Conference pushes bill to exempt meetings from Open Meetings law

While the audit noted that management of the DA’s Conference concurred with the findings and agreed to start taking minutes at committee meetings, it appears that the district attorneys were in the meantime secretly formulating legislation to exempt many of its meetings from the Open Meetings Act.

Last week, a bill written by the District Attorneys General Conference passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, exempting its executive committee from holding public meetings for several broad reasons. One of the reasons was to discuss “Matters involving requests, information, investigations, proceedings, or prosecutions conducted by a district attorney general pro tem appointed under § 8-7-106.”

Last month, TCOG pointed out to the DA’s Conference that the language did not specify that “requests, information or proceedings” had to be related to prosecutions and suggested clarifying language about what types of matters involving requests or information” could allow a meeting to be closed.

TCOG also was concerned that the bill allowed closed meetings to discuss audits, and suggested that only meetings discussing information concerning ongoing audits, not finished audits. (In fact, it would appear that any discussion of the audit concerning open meetings violations could be discussed in private under this bill).

TCOG also questioned why exemptions were needed at all as the attorney-client privilege already serves as an exemption to the Open Meetings Act when a governing body is discussing pending or potential litigation.

The bill is being carried by Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, and Rep. Elaine Davis, R-Knoxville.

The bill passed the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee on March 12 and is scheduled to be heard by the House Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday.