Delaware Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in Delaware, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Can a Delaware city interview finalists for a lobbyist contract in a closed executive session the way it would for a job applicant?
No, under the law as it stood in 2005. The AG found the City of Newark violated FOIA by holding two closed executive sessions to interview and compare two outside firms competing for a lobbying servic…
Can a Delaware public body vote in public to hire one of two final job candidates without naming them at the time of the vote?
No, under the law as it stood in 2005. The AG found the New Castle County Council's Personnel Committee did not violate FOIA by voting in open session to hire Candidate A over Candidate B for counsel …
Can a Delaware city keep executive session minutes secret when they cover a city solicitor's pay instead of a city employee's?
No, under the law as it stood in 2005. The AG found the City of Newark properly kept confidential the portion of its executive session minutes discussing the City Secretary's raise, since she is a pub…
Can a Delaware school district keep its union contract negotiation drafts and strategy secret until a final deal is reached?
Yes, according to this opinion. The AG found draft contract proposals and negotiating strategy tied to ongoing collective bargaining are exempt from FOIA and can be discussed in closed executive sessi…
If a town labels an executive session 'personnel' but actually discusses a volunteer board candidate, is that a FOIA violation?
Yes but harmless, under the law as it stood in 2003. The AG found South Bethany invoked the wrong FOIA exemption when it labeled a closed session on a Board of Adjustment candidate as "personnel," but…
Can a school board hold a meeting with only 24 hours' notice if weather delayed its scheduling?
Yes, under the law as it stood in 2003. The AG found Christina School District properly gave only 24 hours' notice of a meeting because a week of snow closures had prevented earlier scheduling with de…
How late can a town council wait to approve its meeting minutes before it violates Delaware's open meeting law?
Yes, under the law as it stood in 2003. The AG found Fenwick Island violated FOIA by leaving the minutes of fifteen 2002 meetings unapproved for two to seven months, but found no violation in how the …
Can a town council secretly decide a zoning application in private meetings labeled 'legal advice' and then vote on it in public?
No, under the law as it stood in 2002. The AG found the Camden Town Council violated FOIA by holding closed-door meetings labeled 'legal advice' to actually discuss and reach consensus on a developer'…
Can a county keep the minutes of an executive session about buying land confidential while negotiations are still ongoing?
Yes, under the law as it stood in 2002. The AG found Sussex County Council properly used executive session to discuss a preliminary land purchase and could keep the session's minutes confidential whil…
Can a town council go into a closed executive session to discuss police salaries or get legal advice about the police department?
No, under the law as it stood in 2002. The AG found the Fenwick Island Town Council improperly used executive session three times to discuss police salary increases and general police department issue…
Can a county council fold its executive session minutes into the minutes of the open portion of the same meeting?
No, under the law as it stood in 2002. The AG found the Sussex County Council violated FOIA by not maintaining minutes of a July 17, 2001 executive session separate from the minutes of the meeting's p…
Can a Delaware school board go into closed session to discuss collective bargaining, and does it have to say so on the agenda?
The board can hold the closed session, since collective bargaining records are exempt from FOIA's public records requirements, but the AG found the board violated the law by labeling those closed sess…
Can a school board discuss disagreements between its own members in a closed personnel executive session?
No, under the law as it stood in 2001. The AG found the Indian River School District violated FOIA by discussing "Boardsmanship," personal disagreements among the board's own members that led to a boa…
Is it a FOIA violation if a public body briefly strays into an improper topic during executive session but stops as soon as someone objects?
No, according to this opinion. The AG cleared Woodbridge's school district of any FOIA violation across five executive-session topics, finding that personnel and labor-negotiation items fit within FOI…
Can a school board hold a planning retreat if it labels the meeting as a closed executive session?
No, under the law as it stood in 1998, not when the topics discussed don't fall under an authorized reason for going into executive session. The AG found the Appoquinimink School District violated FOI…
If an AG finds a public body improperly deliberated in closed session, can the body fix it by redoing just the deliberation instead of the whole hearing?
Yes, under the circumstances of this opinion. After Newark asked the AG to reconsider its ruling that the Board of Ethics improperly deliberated ethics charges in executive session, the AG declined to…
Can a city ethics board go into closed session to deliberate and reach a consensus on ethics charges, calling it a legal-advice session?
No, under the law as it stood in 1998. The AG found Newark's Board of Ethics went well beyond the narrow legal-advice exception when it deliberated the merits of ethics charges and reached a consensus…
Does a school district have to tape-record its executive sessions or identify students and employees by name when it meets to discuss personnel matters?
No, under the law as it stood in 1997. The AG found the Woodbridge School District didn't violate FOIA by keeping written (rather than tape-recorded) minutes of an executive session, or by discussing …
What does a city council have to do before it can legally close a meeting to the public?
The council violated FOIA, under the law as it stood in 1997, by going into executive session at two meetings without announcing its intent in the agenda, without a public vote to close the session, a…
Can a school board require a newspaper's records request to be made in writing to its attorney, and can it discuss a controversial charter school application in closed session?
Mostly no violation, under the law as it stood in 1997. The AG found Red Clay's requirement that a newspaper's public records request be in writing and addressed to its counsel didn't violate FOIA, th…
Could a Delaware school board discuss teacher terminations and layoffs for three hours in closed session, and could it informally poll members on teacher transfers there too?
Yes to both, under the law as it stood in 1996. The AG found that a school board's three-hour executive session was properly devoted to personnel matters tied to terminations and reductions in force, …
Can a school board review scholarship applications behind closed doors if they include student transcripts and parents' tax returns?
Yes, under the law as it stood in 1996. The AG found the Woodbridge Board of Education properly discussed scholarship applications in executive session because the applications included student transc…
Can a school board discuss a dispute between a board member and a district employee in closed executive session under Delaware's open-meetings law?
Yes, under the law as it stood in 1996. The AG found the Woodbridge Board of Education properly discussed a board member's conduct toward a guidance counselor and principal in executive session, becau…
After Delaware's AG finds a town council violated the open-meetings law during a rezoning vote, who decides whether the vote has to be redone?
Under the law as it stood in 1996, the AG has authority to recommend, though not itself order, a remedy for a FOIA violation. On reconsidering its own earlier ruling against the Camden Town Council, t…
Can a town council go into a closed executive session during a rezoning hearing without a public vote or a stated reason?
No, under the law as it stood in 1996. The AG found the Camden Town Council violated FOIA by not disclosing in its agenda that it intended to hold an executive session or vote on a rezoning request, b…
Can a town council retroactively legalize meetings that violated Delaware's open-meetings law just by taking a follow-up vote?
Not the way Georgetown tried it, under the law as it stood in 1996. After finding numerous separate violations, mostly missing 7-day meeting notices without an explanation and an improper executive-se…
Did a Delaware school board give proper notice when its meeting agenda just said 'Personnel' before interviewing principal candidates in closed session?
No, under the law as it stood in 1995. The AG found the Woodbridge Board of Education violated FOIA by listing its executive session only as "Personnel" without citing the specific statutory ground fo…
Can a Delaware governor's advisory council hold private meetings with invited guests under the state's open-meetings law?
No, under the law as it stood in 1995. The AG concluded that the Governor's Council on Equal Employment Opportunity qualified as a public body under FOIA because it was partly funded with public money…
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Attorney general opinions in Delaware are written by the Delaware Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.