City and town councils in South Carolina have to meet at least once a month. These are the regular meetings, required by SC Code Section 5-7-250, although councils can establish local rules to have regular meetings more frequently. Under the SC Freedom of Information Act, councils must give written public notice of their regular meetings at the beginning of each calendar year.
Councils aren’t limited to meeting only during these regularly occurring times. They can meet at additional times, as called by the mayor or by a majority of council, regardless of the form of government. These special meetings typically occur when councils need to address late-breaking, urgent business that that cannot be postponed until the next regular meeting. Sometimes, councils use these meetings to receive information or have discussions that will help prevent excessively long regular meetings.
Some councils regularly hold special meetings that they refer to as work sessions, called meetings or study sessions, but these are simply other ways of describing a special meeting, since state law does not establish the other terms as particular categories of public meetings. Rescheduled meetings or council retreats also fall under the definition of special meetings.
Special meetings differ from the emergency meetings provided for in SC Code 5-7-250(d). Emergency meetings are intended for crisis circumstances, like a natural disaster. Because they are not subject to FOIA requirements, councils should use great caution when calling them.
Here are several points to consider when calling special meetings:
Special meetings and FOIA rules
Because councils may call special meetings to address unexpected developments or workloads, they are not subject to the FOIA requirement of giving written, annual public notice of regular meetings.
Special meetings are subject to other FOIA requirements, however. They must have an agenda posted at the place of the meeting and distributed to the media and others who have requested them at least 24 hours in advance, giving the date, time and place of the meeting. As with regular meetings, the council in a special meeting can only take action on items listed on the agenda, which is subject to specific agenda amendment rules set out in FOIA. The meetings must be open to the public, and the council must record minutes.
Carefully consider whether special meetings should be used to conduct regular business.
The regular business of the council — recurring ordinance and resolution items that the council can anticipate addressing on an ongoing basis — are often best handled through regular meetings. It’s important also to use regular meetings for issues of major public interest when possible, such as for ordinances to raise taxes or increase fees.
Some councils use special meetings to address high-stakes but discrete issues like annual budget approval, or matters needing extensive public input, such as the required resident participation for the Community Development Block Grant budget. The potential advantage of special meetings in these contexts is that they allow a single-purpose meeting in which residents can be assured that the only business discussed will be the named action item. Councils should balance this advantage against the general preference for conducting business during regular meetings.
Be mindful of council precedent when using special meetings.
For example, if a council regularly schedules special meetings called “work sessions,” and has a history of rarely or never voting on action items during these work sessions, then residents would have reason to expect that council will not will take official action in work sessions and will instead wait until the next regular meeting.
Learn more in the Municipal Association’s Handbook for Municipal Officials in South Carolina.