Manasquan School Board to Post Meeting Audio Online

The Manasquan School Board on Tuesday voted in favor of changing its bi-laws to allow audio recordings of its meetings to be posted online. 

Recordings of all open session meetings will be available on the school district's website, though the board approval notes that "these will not be the official record of the meetings."

The written minutes prepared by board Secretary Margaret "Peg" Hom and approved by the board will remain the official meeting business record.

At the board's work session last week, President Michelle LaSala said that posting full audio recordings of each meeting could help lighten the load on Hom, also the district's business administrator, from fulfilling Open Public Records Act requests for meeting minutes. 

Officials said that Hom spends a great deal of her time handling OPRA requests for minutes, which she also has the responsibility of typing up, and perhaps providing the public with the audio would alleviate some of her workload. 

"After a while, it became that we might as well just post them," Hom said following the Tuesday meeting. 

The minutes themselves, officials said, have become so detailed that some meetings are 18 pages long. Board Attorney R. Armen McComber has said the minutes were most likely more descriptive than required by law. 

The files would be made available indefinitely on the district's website for the public to access at anytime, officials said.