Deadline to Approve Minutes?

Started by SusanS9 • 3 replies • 5412 views

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SusanS9 (California)
Posts: 56

Posted:

Is there a deadline to approve board minutes? If board minutes have not been approved for 1 year, is it legal to go back, change and approve draft minutes or is there a rule that disallows that? If disallowed, what happens to minutes?

BevM (Virginia)
Posts: 34

Posted:

Minutes, whether draft of final, can be ammended at any time, as long as they reflect the actions that were taken. They can 't be ammended to change the outcome of the business that was taken at the meeting. Example; If the final minutes said: "Motion was made by John Brown that all houses must be painted pink with purple shutters, passed with unanimous vote in the affirmative," you can't go back and change the motion to read that all house must be painted black with white shutters. You would have to readdress that issue and take a whole new vote. But if the original motion was to paint all houses purple with pink shutter, and the motion was incorrectly stated (as above)in the minutes, you could have those minutes ammended, even if it was years later.

BevM (Virginia)
Posts: 34

Posted:

Although the Calafornia Code does not state when minutes have to be approved, it does state when they have to be made available in code 1363.05.(d) There is no reason why the minutes should not be approved at the next meeting of the board. It should be a regular item on the agenda: " Adoption of Minutes of Previous Meetings."
If there are more than one set of minutes to be approved, I include the dates of the mintues to be adopted when I present them for approval...

Here is that code.
1363.05(a) This section shall be known and may be cited as the
Common Interest Development Open Meeting Act.
(b) Any member of the association may attend meetings of the board
of directors of the association, except when the board adjourns to
executive session to consider litigation, matters relating to the
formation of contracts with third parties, member discipline,
personnel matters, or to meet with a member, upon the member's
request, regarding the member's payment of assessments, as specified
in Section 1367 or 1367.1. The board of directors of the association
shall meet in executive session, if requested by a member who may be
subject to a fine, penalty, or other form of discipline, and the
member shall be entitled to attend the executive session.
(c) Any matter discussed in executive session shall be generally
noted in the minutes of the immediately following meeting that is
open to the entire membership.
(d) The minutes, minutes proposed for adoption that are marked to
indicate draft status, or a summary of the minutes, of any meeting of
the board of directors of an association, other than an executive
session, shall be available to members within 30 days of the meeting.
The minutes, proposed minutes, or summary minutes shall be
distributed to any member of the association upon request and upon
reimbursement of the association's costs for making that
distribution.

BruceF1 (Connecticut)
Posts: 2,535

Posted:

SusanS,

Normal parliamentary procedure requires that the minutes of a given meeting of an assembly be read and approved at the next regular meeting of the assembly. Are you saying that your board meets only once a year?
Waiting a year to read and approve minutes is not recommended as memories are short and the ability of board members to determine the accuracy of the contents of the minutes is diminished. Roberts Rules recommends that if meetings are not held at least quarterly, then some other method of approving the minutes be established. Otherwise, there is no "time limit" for reading and approving the minutes unless such a time limit exists in your bylaws or in your state statutes.

Minutes that have been previously approved can be amended or corrected later, but the proper motion to do that, using standard parliamentary procedure, is a "motion to amend (the minutes of XXX), previously adopted." Such a motion requires a 2/3 majority to pass without notice, or a simple majority with notice.

Note that it is not permissable to stike something from the minutes using this motion. Since the minutes are supposed to be a record of actions taken by an assembly, the only way to strike something is to undo the action. This requires a motion to "rescind a previous action and expunge from the minutes" and has very specific rules. In general, one never "erases" or completely blacks out the portion to be expunged, but simply draws a single line through the text, or circles it, and notes "ordered expunged."

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