Between April 10 and May 6, 2025, Governor Mike Braun signed into law House Enrolled Acts 1134, 1427, 1509, and 1641. Taken together, these acts amend Indiana’s Open Door Law, Indiana Code (I.C.) 5-14-1.5, et seq., to provide additional meeting types that may be convened via executive session (not open to the public) while adding new requirements for meeting notices and agendas of appointed boards beginning July 1, 2025.
Executive Sessions
These changes apply to any public body already subject to Indiana’s Open Door Law.
In addition to the currently approved reasons for an executive session under I.C. 5-14-1.5-6.1, the new law now allows executive sessions to be held for the following purposes:
- Discussion of employee-specific compensation
- Discussion of employment matters of individual employees
- Discussion of employee health care options with respect to special exceptions for coverage
- Discussion of changes to employee handbooks
- Review of negotiations on the performance of publicly bid contracts when a public meeting regarding the review would likely result in increased costs
- Discussion of certain solicitations for proposals involving bidders’ proprietary information
- Communication with an attorney that would be subject to attorney-client privilege
Executive sessions are still subject to the current notice requirements under I.C. 5-14-1.5-5.
Appointed Boards
The new requirements under I.C. 5-14-9, et seq., apply to any board of the state or a political subdivision that includes an “appointed officer,” defined as any individual who is appointed to serve on a board by either an elected official or a body of elected officials.
Starting July 1, 2025, any board meeting notice or agenda that includes appointed officers must contain the following information:
- The name of the appointed officer
- The authority that appointed the officer
- The beginning and expiration date of the appointed officer’s term
The same information must also be published on the website of either the board or the website of the appointing authority for those officers. If neither the board nor the appointing authority maintains a website, the information must be published online through the Indiana Office of Technology’s gateway system.
If an appointed board is merely a committee, subcommittee, or other subgroup of an elected body whose members are all members of the elected body, the meeting notice and agenda only need to contain the following:
- The name of the appointed officers
- The individual’s elected office title
- A link to the board’s website
Note: If a board has published all of their meeting notices for the year as allowed under I.C. 5-14-1.5-5(c), they will need to republish their meeting notices to include the new information for any public meeting held after July 1, 2025.
As a reminder, Indiana political subdivisions will be required to livestream, record, and archive all public meetings beginning July 1, 2025. For a summary of those requirements, please see our previous article, accessible here.
For more information on these new Open Door Law requirements, please contact the author or any attorney with Frost Brown Todd’s Government Services Practice Group.
*Note: Jay Sollman, a second-year law student at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, contributed to this article while working as a summer associate at Frost Brown Todd.