Inquiry of the Week (6/24/02)

Question:

May a governing body meet in executive session to review applicants for public employment and reduce the number of applicants (i.e., make a preliminary cut)?

Answer:

Under recent case law, it does not appear so. RCW 42.30.110(1)(g), which authorizes a governing body to meet in executive session "to evaluate the qualifications of an applicant for public employment," requires that "final action hiring" an applicant be done in open session, could be read to imply that less than final action hiring, i.e., making a preliminary cut, would be permissible in executive session. However, that argument was specifically rejected in Miller v. City of Tacoma, 138 Wn.2d 318 (1999), where the state supreme court addressed whether the city council could conduct a series of ballots in executive session to arrive at a consensus candidate for planning commission:

Although RCW 42.30.110(1)(g) specifically states "when a governing body elects to take final action hiring . . . that action shall be taken in a meeting open to the public," the rule that exceptions to the act must be narrowly interpreted, if not the plain language of the statute, prevents the conclusion that all action other than "final action" is permitted in executive session. Instead, only the action explicitly specified by the exception may take place in executive session. Therefore in the present case the council in executive session could only "evaluate the qualifications" of the applicants for public employment: any action taken beyond the scope of the exception violated the act.

138 Wn.2d at 327.

Thus, any balloting, even if only to reduce the field of candidates, would be beyond the scope of the exemption for evaluating applicants for public employment.

For more information on this topic, see our "Open Public Meetings" page.