Which meetings need 18 hours of posted notice under the Open Meetings Act, which ride the annual schedule, and where the notice physically has to be.
The Open Meetings Act splits meeting notice into two regimes. Regular meetings ride an annual schedule: within 10 days after the first meeting of the calendar or fiscal year, the public body posts the dates, times, and places of its regular meetings (MCL 15.265(2)). A regular meeting held on that posted schedule needs no separate per-meeting notice, and the 18-hour rule does not apply to it. If the body later changes the schedule, it posts the revised schedule within 3 days after the meeting at which the change was made (MCL 15.265(3)).
Everything outside the posted schedule falls into the 18-hour regime. A special meeting, and a regular meeting that has been rescheduled to a different date, time, or place, requires a public notice posted at least 18 hours before the meeting (MCL 15.265(4)).
One more case catches boards off guard: a meeting recessed for more than 36 hours may be reconvened only after notice has been posted in the same 18-hour manner (MCL 15.265(5)). A “short recess” that stretches past a day and a half is, for notice purposes, a new meeting. Count backward from the reconvened start time the same way you would for a special meeting.
Content first. Every notice under the Act shows three things: the name of the public body, its telephone number if it has one, and its address (MCL 15.264). A notice that announces a date and time but omits the address of the body posting it is defective before it ever hits the wall.
Then location. The notice is posted at the body’s principal office, plus any other locations the body considers appropriate (MCL 15.264). Two special cases matter for smaller entities. A sub-body, such as a committee or commission created by a parent entity, also posts at the principal office of the parent entity (MCL 15.264(c)). And a local public body that has no principal office of its own posts its notice with the county clerk (MCL 15.264(d)). A joint authority or small district that meets in borrowed space is exactly the kind of body this clause exists for.
Whatever the location, document the posting. A dated photograph of the notice on the board, saved with the meeting file, settles most disputes about whether the 18 hours were real before they start.
The website requirement is conditional, and the condition trips people in both directions. The 18-hour notice must also be posted on the body’s website if the body directly or indirectly maintains one that is updated monthly or better with agendas or minutes (MCL 15.265(4)). A body with no website, or a site that sits untouched for months, has no website posting duty. A body whose site is kept current does, and “indirectly” means a site a vendor or the parent municipality runs on the body’s behalf still counts.
Placement is specified too. On a qualifying site, the notice goes on the homepage or on a dedicated public-notices page reachable by a prominent link. A PDF three clicks deep in a documents archive does not satisfy the statute’s idea of notice. If your site qualifies, treat the website posting as part of the same 18-hour clock as the physical one, because it is.
The Act allows a session without 18-hour notice in one narrow situation: a severe and imminent threat to the public health, safety, or welfare, when 2/3 of the members serving decide that delay would be detrimental (MCL 15.265(5)). A water main failure, not a scheduling headache. If the item can wait 18 hours, it waits.
Meeting under the exception does not remove the notice duty; it changes its form and adds two obligations. First, paper copies of the notice must be available at the meeting itself, and the notice must include a specific explanation of why 18-hour notice was impossible. “Time was short” is not specific; “the dam breach was reported at 6:40 a.m. and emergency contracting authority was needed before noon” is. Second, within 48 hours, the body must send official correspondence to the board of county commissioners of its county (MCL 15.265(5)). That letter is easy to forget once the crisis passes, and it is exactly the kind of omission that surfaces later.
Dekree knows what type each meeting is and applies the right notice rule automatically: the 18-hour math for special and rescheduled meetings, annual-schedule coverage for regulars that need no individual notice. The notice is drafted with the body’s name, telephone number, and address already merged, and posting to your public portal is one click after your review. Nothing posts without you.
The Act attaches real consequences to notice failures:
The practical takeaway: classify the meeting correctly before anything else. Regular on the posted schedule, special, rescheduled, reconvened after a long recess, or true emergency; each carries a different notice duty, and the classification decides everything downstream. Once the meeting is held, the clock shifts to the minutes, which have deadlines of their own; those are covered in our minutes checklist guide.
No. Regular meetings that appear on the annual schedule the body posts within 10 days after its first meeting of the calendar or fiscal year need no separate per-meeting notice, and the 18-hour rule does not apply to them (MCL 15.265(2)). The 18-hour requirement covers special meetings and rescheduled meetings (MCL 15.265(4)).
At the principal office of the public body, plus any other locations the body considers appropriate (MCL 15.264), and on the website of the body if it directly or indirectly maintains one that is updated monthly or better with agendas or minutes. On a qualifying site, the notice goes on the homepage or on a dedicated public-notices page reachable by a prominent link (MCL 15.265(4)).
Only in an emergency session addressing a severe and imminent threat to the public health, safety, or welfare, when two-thirds of the members serving decide that delay would be detrimental (MCL 15.265(5)). Paper copies of the notice, with a specific explanation of why 18-hour notice was impossible, must be available at the meeting, and within 48 hours the body must send official correspondence to the board of county commissioners of its county.
Yes. A circuit court can invalidate a decision where the noncompliance impaired the rights of the public, generally within 60 days after the approved minutes are made public, shortened to 30 days for decisions involving contracts, bonds, bids, assessments, or borrowing (MCL 15.270). The body may cure the problem by re-enacting the decision in conformity with the Act.
This article is educational information for Michigan public bodies, current as of the publication date. It is not legal advice, and statutes and court decisions change. Confirm specifics with your municipal attorney. Statute text: legislature.mi.gov.