It’s a New Year: Do Your Hospital Bylaws Comply with the New Open Meeting Notice Requirements?

We are sending this alert directly to you to make sure you are aware of recent changes to certain open meeting requirements for Nebraska public hospitals. Governing boards of Nebraska county hospitals and hospital districts might need to amend the organizational bylaws to ensure the organization complies with changes in the Nebraska open meetings law.  Beginning January 1, 2025, Nebraska law imposes new notice requirements for meetings of a public body.  Legislative Bill 287 amended the Nebraska Open Meetings Act, Nebraska Revised Statutes sections 84‑1407–1414 (the “Act”), in several significant ways.

First, the governing boards of county hospitals and hospital districts will no longer satisfy the meeting notice requirements of the Act by posting a copy of the notice in three (3) public places in the city, town, or district where the hospital is located as was previously required.  Instead the governing boards of county hospitals and hospital districts must now provide notice of a meeting by: (1) publishing notice of the meeting in a newspaper of general circulation, posting the notice on the corresponding newspaper’s website, if available, and posting the notice on a statewide website that a majority of Nebraska newspapers maintain as a repository for these types of notices or (2) if no edition of a newspaper of general circulation is to be finalized for printing prior to the time and date of the meeting posting the notice on the website of a newspaper of general circulation, if available, and posting the notice to a statewide website that a majority of Nebraska newspapers maintain as a repository for these types of notices. The Nebraska Press Association is one example of this type of website.  See their website here.  As a reminder, county hospitals and hospital districts will need to update the copy of the Act posted in the meeting room to reflect the current version of Act. 

The changes to the Act also provide greater flexibility to the governing boards of county hospitals and hospital districts because Nebraska law no longer requires these entities to include an agenda of the public meeting within the published notice.  This allows county hospitals and hospital districts to change the agenda up to the time of the meeting provided that the bylaws also allow this flexibility. 

We recommend that governing boards of county hospitals and hospital districts review their organizational bylaws to determine if updates are needed to reflect the new notice requirements.  Please contact us if we can be of assistance in reviewing and updating your bylaws for this change and any other general updates.