Does Arkansas's new open-meeting law (Act 505 of 2025) apply to a city council, the mayor, or both?
Plain-English summary
Act 505 of 2025 amended Arkansas's open-meeting rules in the Freedom of Information Act. The new rules apply to "governing bodies" and to the people who serve on them. Attorney General Tim Griffin opined that a city council clearly is a governing body, and that a mayor sitting on the council, even when the mayor sits ex officio (by virtue of holding the mayor's office), is a member of that governing body too. So Act 505 covers the council, the mayor, and the council's individual members all at once.
The opinion does not interpret what Act 505 specifically requires (informal meeting rules, polling rules, deliberation rules); it only confirms who is bound. The substantive open-meeting requirements that Act 505 added apply with full force to city councils and to mayors when they participate as council members.
What this means for you
If you serve on a city council in Arkansas
Treat the mayor as a fellow council member when applying open-meeting rules. Casual conversations between you and the mayor about council business are no longer just "talking to the boss"; they are conversations between two members of the same governing body. Under the FOIA's amended definitions, two-member exchanges about council business can constitute a "deliberation" or "informal meeting" that the statute regulates.
If you're a council member emailing the mayor about an upcoming agenda item, putting the mayor in a group text about a vote, or chatting with the mayor in a break room about pending business, those interactions are subject to FOIA's open-meeting rules.
If you are a mayor
Even if your city's form of government makes you the council's ex officio president and you may not always think of yourself as a council "member," for open-meeting purposes you are one. You and any one other council member, in private, can trigger FOIA's deliberation and informal-meeting rules. Talking with two or more council members at once outside a noticed public meeting is the kind of contact Act 505 is designed to constrain.
Polls, where you are trying to gauge how a majority will vote on something before the meeting, also fall within FOIA's poll definition (which requires a "member of a governing body").
If you are a city attorney
Update your training and policies so council members and the mayor understand they are now treated as a single class of "members of a governing body" under § 25-19-103. Walk through the new Act 505 language with each new council member at orientation. The classic boundary, "the mayor is the executive, the council is the legislature, so they don't count as the same body," does not apply for FOIA open-meeting purposes.
If you are a journalist or citizen monitoring a city council
If you suspect the mayor and a council member, or two council members, met privately about city business, the AG's reading of Act 505 supports your right to challenge that under the FOIA. The exemption that used to be sometimes claimed (mayor is not a council member, so a one-on-one mayor-councilor talk is not a "meeting") does not work in light of this opinion.
Common questions
Q: What is Act 505 of 2025?
A: A law enacted in the 2025 Arkansas legislative session that revised the open-meeting provisions of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, including how the FOIA defines "governing body," "deliberation," "informal meeting," "poll," and "public meeting."
Q: Why does the AG's opinion matter if Act 505 itself defines the term?
A: Act 505 defines "governing body" as "the governing body of a public entity," which is circular. The AG fills the gap with prior AG opinions and case law explaining that a governing body is one with decision-making authority. A city council is the canonical example.
Q: Is the mayor always a council member?
A: Not in every formal sense, but for FOIA open-meeting purposes, yes. Arkansas statutes (A.C.A. §§ 14-43-501 and 14-44-107(a)) make the mayor the ex officio president of the city council in mayor-council and second-class-city governments. Earlier AG opinions (cited in this opinion) have repeatedly treated such ex officio mayors as council members under the FOIA.
Q: Does Act 505 apply to county quorum courts, school boards, and other bodies, too?
A: Yes. The phrase "governing body" is not limited to city councils. The same logic the AG uses here, decision-making authority makes a body a "governing body," would extend to any entity that fits that description (quorum courts, school boards, planning commissions, public hospital boards, and so on). This particular opinion is just about the city-council/mayor question Representative Richardson asked.
Q: Is a city council automatically a governing body even in a small city?
A: Yes. The Arkansas Supreme Court held in Laman v. McCord (1968) that a city council "was unquestionably" a governing body under the FOIA's open-meeting provisions, regardless of city size or class.
Background and statutory framework
Arkansas's FOIA, A.C.A. § 25-19-101 et seq., has long required that meetings of public bodies be open to the public. The 2025 General Assembly passed Act 505, which retooled the open-meeting definitions in § 25-19-103. The amendments tightened the language about deliberation between members, informal meetings outside noticed public meetings, polling, and public meetings.
The amendments left "governing body" defined circularly. To know whether Act 505 applies to a particular entity, the reader has to know whether that entity counts as a governing body. The AG's office has, for decades, said that whether something is a governing body depends on the nature and degree of its decision-making authority. A city council is the prototypical example.
For mayor-council cities and second-class cities, state statutes make the mayor the ex officio president of the council. Multiple prior AG opinions have applied the FOIA open-meeting rules to the mayor as a council member. Opinion 2025-085 confirms that this carries over to Act 505.
Citations and references
Statutes:
- A.C.A. § 25-19-103 (Arkansas FOIA definitions, as amended by Act 505 of 2025)
- A.C.A. § 14-43-501 (mayor as ex officio president of city council, mayor-council form)
- A.C.A. § 14-44-107(a) (second-class cities, same rule)
- Act 505 of 2025, § 1
Cases:
- Laman v. McCord, 245 Ark. 401, 432 S.W.2d 753 (1968)
Prior AG opinions cited:
- Ark. Att'y Gen. Ops. 2014-124, 2006-059, 2003-289, 2003-170, 2002-092, 2001-324, 2000-051, 99-407, 98-169, 98-113, 97-057, 96-074, 96-067, 96-062, 95-227, 92-241, 91-288
Source
Original opinion text
BOB R. BROOKS JR. JUSTICE BUILDING
101 WEST CAPITOL AVENUE
LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72201
Opinion No. 2025-085
August 29, 2025
The Honorable R. Scott Richardson
State Representative
4106 Southwest Rhinestone Boulevard
Bentonville, Arkansas 72713
Dear Representative Richardson:
I am writing in response to your request for my opinion on the open-meeting provisions of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") and whether Act 505 of 2025 applies to the city council, the mayor, or both.
RESPONSE
Act 505 of 2025 applies to "governing bodies" and their members. Because a city council is a governing body, and a mayor is typically a member of that governing body, the act applies to the city council and its individual members, including the mayor, for that particular governing body.
DISCUSSION
Act 505 of 2025 amends the open-meeting provisions of the FOIA, applying its requirements to "governing bodies." The act defines that term in a circular way: a "'[g]overning body' means the governing body of a public entity." Although neither statutes nor courts have expressly defined the phrase "governing body," this Office has consistently opined that such a body is one that has decision-making authority. Thus, whether something is a governing body depends on the nature and degree of its decision-making authority. A classic example of a governing body is a city council. And to the extent that the mayor is a member of the city council, even if ex officio, he or she is a member of that particular governing body under the FOIA. For purposes of applying Act 505 of 2025, the mayor and individual city council members are members of the same governing body, the city council.
Assistant Attorney General William R. Olson prepared this opinion, which I hereby approve.
Sincerely,
TIM GRIFFIN
Attorney General