You asked if minutes must be kept of legislative workshops. You are specifically interested in minutes from a workshop the Appropriations Committee conducted in the first quarter of 2001 on loss portfolio and the transfer of state employees’ workers’ compensation losses.

We do not have enough information to answer your question. We conducted a computer search for workshops the Appropriations Committee conducted during the time period you specificed and did not find any. We also searched, to no avail, for workshops that may have been conducted by the departments of Administrative Services and Corrections and the Office of Policy and Management. As a consequence, we do not know how the workshop was structured (i. e. , whether there was any communication to record in minutes).

Generally, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires public agencies, including legislative committees, to keep minutes of their meetings and make the minutes available for public inspection within seven days after the meeting. The requirement does not apply to executive sessions (CGS § 1-225).

The answer to your specific query hinges on whether the legislative “workshop” was a public meeting within the meaning of the FOIA. The act defines a “meeting” as any hearing or other proceeding of a public agency, convening or assembly of a quorum of a multimember public agency, or any communication by or to a quorum of a multimember public agency to discuss or act upon a matter over which the public agency has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power (CGS § 1-200). There are several exceptions to the definition but none seem to apply to the workshop you describe.

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