Q: I’m writing a piece about charter school transparency requirements and want to make sure I understand the requirements for them to be subject to the Brown Act. Looking at A&A about charters it looks like a publicly-funded charter school is not subject to the Brown Act if there is no one on the governing board of the LLC or non-profit appointed by the funding agency (such as the Los Angeles Unified School District.)
A: The Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, applies to any “legislative body.” There are a couple of different ways that a particular entity could be viewed as a “legislative body” subject to the Brown Act. Specifically, Gov’t Code § 54952 provides:
As used in this chapter, “legislative body” means:
(c) (1) A board, commission, committee, or other multi-member body that governs a private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity
that either:
(A)
Is created by the elected legislative body in order to exercise authority that may lawfully be delegated by the elected governing body to a private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity.
(B)
Receives funds from a local agency and the membership of whose governing body includes a member of the legislative body of the local agency appointed to that governing body as a full voting member by the legislative body of the local agency.
(2) Notwithstanding subparagraph (B) of paragraph (1), no board, commission, committee, or other multimember body that governs a private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity that receives funds from a local agency and, as of February 9, 1996, has a member of the legislative body of the local agency as a full voting member of the governing body of that private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity shall be relieved from the public meeting requirements of this chapter by virtue of a change in status of the full voting member to a nonvoting member.
Thus, the governing body of a particular charter school would be subject to the Brown Act if either (1) it was created by another body (i.e., the school board) that is itself subject to the Brown Act to exercise authority that may lawfully be delegated by that body to a private entity (i.e., operation of charter schools), or (2) it receives funds from a local agency subject to the Brown Act and at least one voting member of the school’s governing body is a member of the legislative body of the local agency subject to the Brown Act who was appointed to that position by the legislative body of the local agency.
As you can see, if the charter school’s governing body fits into the first category above – i.e., created by another legislative body to exercise authority delegated to it by that body – then the charter school may be subject to the Brown Act, even if it does not have a member on its board who is also a member of the legislative body that provides funds to the charter school. You might ask to review documents related to
the creation of the charter school to see if it fits into either of the categories described above.
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