Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Governance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board discusses a finance committee with public members; attorney warns about quorum, authority and ethics
Summary
The board discussed creating a finance committee that could include commissioners and public experts. City Attorney counsel advised making the committee recommendation-only, defining quorum carefully to avoid triggering open‑meetings issues or effectively enlarging the board, and considering ethics disclosures for outside members.
The Housing Authority spent a substantial portion of its Dec. 10 meeting discussing the possible creation of a finance committee to provide greater oversight and support for audits, budgets and recovery-plan work.
Greg Cruz of the City Attorney’s Office told commissioners that while state law likely allows the board to create a finance committee (expressly or by implication of its finance responsibilities), the committee should not be given independent final authority to approve matters that would effectively increase the board’s membership. Cruz warned that public members should generally be limited to advisory roles and that the committee must comply with open meetings and public records laws. He also recommended clearly defining quorum rules, member selection, replacement procedures and the committee’s specific responsibilities in any resolution that creates the body.
Commissioners debated committee size and composition. Some favored a committee comprised only of commissioners; others said bringing in trusted external experts (for example, a university finance professor or an accounting-firm representative) could bolster credibility and technical review. Several commissioners urged protections to prevent outside members from voting or creating conflicts; Cruz suggested considering statements of economic interest or similar ethics checks if outside members are included.
Next steps: Counsel offered to work with commissioners who volunteer to draft a resolution for the committee’s scope and rules. Commissioners also discussed pairing audit and finance oversight and ensuring the audit committee functions effectively alongside any new finance committee.
Representative quote: “We want to avoid a situation wherein we are accidentally increasing the membership of this board,” Greg Cruz said, urging that committees be recommendation-only.
