Hunter College is grappling with a $14 million deficit inside its $399 million budget, and the way CUNY trustees discussed that shortfall is now drawing scrutiny. The Board of Trustees held a two-and-a-half-hour retreat at Hunter’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute on August 17 to go over the finances of CUNY’s 26 colleges and institutions, then reconvened for a public meeting that lasted just two minutes.
The gap between those two sessions is at the center of a brewing dispute over whether CUNY violated New York’s Open Meetings Law, according to the New York Post. A CUNY official told the paper the closed-door session was legal and appropriate because no official board business was conducted and no votes were taken during the retreat. State law does require public meetings for official CUNY board business, though it allows executive sessions or closed-door discussions for matters like personnel issues or litigation.
Not everyone in CUNY’s orbit is buying the university’s defense. Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a former CUNY trustee appointed by then-Gov. George Pataki, said the retreat constituted a meeting of the board. Rachel Fauss argued that public business cannot be conducted privately when a quorum is present, adding that college finances and demographic and enrollment trends are information the public should see. Sources questioned whether the closed-door session violated the state’s transparency law, per the Post’s reporting.
What Legal Precedent Says About Quorum Gatherings
The legal question isn’t new. In Orange County Publications v. Council of the City of Newburgh, the New York Court of Appeals established that any gathering of a quorum of a public body convened to discuss public business constitutes a meeting under the Open Meetings Law, regardless of whether formal votes are taken or how the meeting is labeled, according to the New York State Committee on Open Government. Separate advisory guidance from the same body, cited by the New York State Association of School Attorneys, holds that while pure board-development retreats can be private, any retreat where a quorum discusses substantive public policy, district goals, or administrative finances must be open to the public…