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School Law Legal Alert: Appellate Division Reverses Trial Judge in Important OPMA/OPRA Case
August 20, 2015

On August 18, 2015, the Appellate Division issued a published opinion in a case that will have important implications for all public entities, but school districts in particular.

On August 18, 2015, the Appellate Division issued a published opinion in a case that will have important implications for all public entities, but school districts in particular.

In Opderbeck v. Midland Park Bd. of Educ., ___ N.J. Super. ___, A-2520-13T3 (App. Div. 2015), the court addressed issues involving the Open Public Meetings Act (“OPMA”) and Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) and the burdens placed on local school districts in making the back-up documentation to their agenda available online in advance of public meetings.  The Appellate Division reversed the trial court judge, who had construed the OPMA to find that boards must post online not only the agenda for board meetings, but also the back-up documentation to the extent it was not made confidential by an exception to the OPRA.

In deciding the appeal, the Appellate Division exercised restraint, construing the OPMA according to its actual terms.  The court held that the word “agenda,” as used in the act, was limited to its ordinary meaning of “a list or outline of things to be considered or done.”  The court found no authority for a statutory construction that would expand that definition beyond its normal meaning in order to account for advances in internet technology.  In other words, just because the technology now exists to permit the posting of numerous non-confidential back-up documents online, the statutory language does not require this, and its plain meaning does not change with the technological innovation of the times.  In fact, the court stated that, as currently drafted and until it is one day revised by the Legislature, with a very few exceptions, “the OPMA remains firmly rooted in 1975.”

This is a big win for school districts statewide in terms of the burdens placed on their business offices in putting together and posting online voluminous back-up documents in advance of each month’s meeting, not to mention having to make determinations on an ongoing basis about which documents are confidential and which are publicly available when no OPRA request was made.

Tags: OPRA
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