A bill was introduced earlier this month that would require all public bodies in Illinois to audio record all of their meetings and retain those recordings for a period of a year. The Open Meetings Act already requires public bodies to take minutes of all meetings. The OMA also requires public bodies to record its closed or executive sessions and retain those recordings for 18 months. Finally, the OMA authorizes members of the public to record open meetings. This bill, if passed, would impose the additional requirement that public bodies audio record all open meetings. HB 4580.
