Basic Training

Several states require government officials to take mandatory training or a seminar concerning their respective state’s open meeting laws. The requirement often applies to newly elected or appointed officials shortly after they take office.

States with such mandatory training requirements include:

• Texas: Members of a governmental body subject to the Open Meetings Act (OMA) are required to complete an education training session within 90 days of assuming office. This training is offered by the Attorney General’s office online.
• Iowa: A 2025 law requires all new elected and appointed officials to complete a training course (between one and two hours long) on open meetings and open records laws within 90 days of taking office.
• Washington: The Open Government Trainings Act requires every member of a governing body subject to the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) to receive training no later than 90 days after taking the oath of office. A refresher course is required every four years.
• Maryland: Each public entity subject to the Open Meetings Act must designate at least one employee, officer, or member to receive training on the Act’s requirements within 90 days of designation.
• Oregon: A 2023 state law requires all members of a governing body within a public body that has over $1 million in total expenditures for a fiscal year to attend or view a mandatory training on the state’s public meetings law. 

South Dakota law does not currently mandate that government officials take a seminar or receive formal training on open meeting laws. However, the Attorney General’s office provides comprehensive guides and resources, and violations of the law carry potential penalties, including a Class 2 misdemeanor charge.

I’m not a fan of big government. I’m a fan of freedom and liberties and personal rights. However, when a state creates a system whereby people with no education can create a special district, and tax them, with zero oversight, and no avenue of support when that district goes rogue and is literally stealing from the people and doing anything they want with the money… even if most of the ‘people’ are perfectly fine with being stolen from, then I become a fan of basic oversight.

I’d be a bigger fan of repealing laws where morons can create government entities and the rest of us have no recourse.

In Custer County, the county that up until quite recently offered a guide to start a road district, where they interpreted lots of laws, and none of them very accurately, there is a huge issue with road districts. That was stated by the auditors office (the people that start their conversations with ,’we are not lawyers and cannot give you legal advice,’ and then proceed to give you legal advice that is absolute BS, like ‘the board doesn’t have to have open meetings, just provide minutes,’ and it was stated by the state’s attorney.

How much time is taken up at these offices dealing with Open Meeting and Open Records complaints that could have been avoided by simply teaching the Bob’s and Dale’s and Matt’s and Dale’s of the world, that there are in fact laws they have to follow. That secret meetings are not lawful. That they really do have to provide access to PUBLIC RECORDS. Records that actually show you did indeed spend X dollars on Y project, and that a text document that simply states “we spent X dollars on Y project,” is not actually a public record or evidence that you really did.

How much time could be saved in these offices, and time is money, if the state simply created a seminar and had all these morons attend it? Just sayin’.

Big picture, people. Either require some basic training, or repeal the damn laws that give these uneducated and unsupervised people free reign to steal from us with no repercussions, except the occasional public reprimand from the Open Meetings Commission.