Hospital receives AG letter

Last fall Harold Fugate, who at the time was a member of the Cedar County Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees, wrote a letter to the Attorney General of the State of Missouri concerning perceived violations of the Sunshine Law.

On May 20th of this year, Fugate received a letter from Attorney General Andrew Bailey. The letter was addressed to the Cedar County Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees c/o Attorneys Donn Herring and Janae Graham.

The letter stated that the AG’s office has concluded a review of the matter. Their review included evaluating substantial documentation provided to their office by the complainant and the Board, the plain text of the Sunshine Law, and relevant court decisions.

The AG’s Office did identify deficiencies in the Board’s policies governing public records. During the Oct. 25, 2023 public meeting, the Board voted 4-1 to approve revised Bylaws that focused on public records confidentiality. At the outset the office noted that Section 610.028.2 requires that “each public governmental body shall provide a reasonable written policy in compliance with the Sunshine Law, open to public inspection regarding the release of information on any meeting record or vote.”

According to the Board’s official minutes of the September 20, 2023 meeting, recent revisions to the Bylaws were prompted by “to protect the confidentiality of the information received, reviewed and discussed by the Board during Closed Session, including but not limited to sensitive business information, sensitive personnel information, personal health information, contract/business negotiations and attorney-client communication. In other words, the revisions were prompted by a perceived need to ensure the records are closed to the public, not open. The AG’s office encourages the Board to be mindful of the Sunshine Law’s purpose: “It is the public policy of this state that meetings, records, votes, actions, and deliberations of public governmental bodies be open to the public unless otherwise provided by Law. Sections 610.010 to 610.200 shall be liberally construed and their exceptions strictly construed to promote this public policy” 610.011.1

The letter goes on to state, “While public governmental bodies are authorized by the Sunshine Law to close records…they are typically not required to do so. In other words, Sunshine Law liability almost always happens for improper closure decisions, not improper disclosure decisions.”

There is more to the letter. The next board meeting of the CCMH Board of Trustees is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Monday, June 24.

The Sun hopes at that time that board will discuss these issues in open session.