Motion that fail in committee meetings

[Guest Puzzled]

We have the full board of commissioners that have sub-committees (standing committees) that make recommendations to the full board for their consideration.  My question is, if in the standing committee meeting a motion was made to approve a contract and that motion was supported by the chairman (committee of 3 total) and when voted on the roll call vote was 2 nays to 1 yea.   Does that mean that the contract can not be considered again, is it considered a dead issue with no further action is needed from the standing committee?  Or would that issue stay into standing committee until a motion is passed to present to the full board for their consideration?   Or would the recommendation from the standing committee to the full board be that the standing committee considered the contract and by the vote denied entering to the contract so the full board of commissioners would be able to consider that recommendation? 

 

We have never had an issue have a motion be made that failed in our standing committee, they have always approved in standing committee just to have it presented for the full board to consider, so don't know what to present or not present to the full board for their consideration.  Appreciate any assistance you might have to offer.

[Josh Martin]

We have the full board of commissioners that have sub-committees (standing committees) that make recommendations to the full board for their consideration.  My question is, if in the standing committee meeting a motion was made to approve a contract and that motion was supported by the chairman (committee of 3 total) and when voted on the roll call vote was 2 nays to 1 yea.   Does that mean that the contract can not be considered again, is it considered a dead issue with no further action is needed from the standing committee?  Or would that issue stay into standing committee until a motion is passed to present to the full board for their consideration?   Or would the recommendation from the standing committee to the full board be that the standing committee considered the contract and by the vote denied entering to the contract so the full board of commissioners would be able to consider that recommendation? 

 

We have never had an issue have a motion be made that failed in our standing committee, they have always approved in standing committee just to have it presented for the full board to consider, so don't know what to present or not present to the full board for their consideration.  Appreciate any assistance you might have to offer.

 

Is the committee acting on its own initiative, or acting on a motion or instructions from the board?

[Guest Guest]

The orginial communication (request) was addressed to the Full Board and the way we operate it than is assigned to the appropriate standing committee to consider the request and make a recommendation to be presented to the full board. 

[Josh Martin]

The orginial communication (request) was addressed to the Full Board and the way we operate it than is assigned to the appropriate standing committee to consider the request and make a recommendation to be presented to the full board. 

 

All right. In that case...

 

Does that mean that the contract can not be considered again, is it considered a dead issue with no further action is needed from the standing committee?  Or would that issue stay into standing committee until a motion is passed to present to the full board for their consideration?   Or would the recommendation from the standing committee to the full board be that the standing committee considered the contract and by the vote denied entering to the contract so the full board of commissioners would be able to consider that recommendation? 

 

The issue will remain in the standing committee until some motion is adopted to present it to the full board. It seems clear that the committee is not willing to recommend that the contract be approved. The committee may recommend that the contract be denied. A member would make a motion to that effect and a majority vote would be required for adoption. Alternately, the committee could agree to report the contract to the board with "no recommendation." Regardless of the committee's recommendation (or lack thereof) on the motion, the question before the board will be whether the contract shall be approved. The committee could make other recommendations if it wished (such as recommending that certain amendments be made to the contract, and that the contract then be approved), and then things get a bit more complicated. See RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 516-524 for more information.

[Guest Guest]

I have another question but I feel I need to explain the situtation. 

This contract really has three issues within the contract and this one document was assigned to be review by the three standing committees, but for different portion of the request contained within the contract, each committee of course have different responsibilities, one of our committees is responsible for approving contracts, another committee is responsibile for budgetary portion, and the other is responsibile for personnal issues portion.   

The first portion of this contract for the one committee to consider is just considering to enter into the agreement for a period of one year, which has federal funding that was been awarded to a local school and that school would like to contract our county to provide services to the school through this contract document and it would be paid through these funds they were awarded but would need to have additional staffing to preform the services.   The committee voted 2 nays-1 yeas to the motion to approve entering into this contract.  The motion failed in committee. You are right the committee did not want the contract to be approved, but no other motion was made.

Another portion of this contract is that our county policy would have to accept these funds and approve the increase of revenue within our budget which the other committee would have the responsibility to review and either approve or deny.  This committee voted 2 nays-1 yeas to the motion of to accept the funding and authorizing the budget adjustments to be made.  The motion failed in committee and no other motion was made.

The last committee is responsible for the portion of the request which was to increase staffing in one of departments to provide this services, we don't have the staffing to provide the services so a new position would need to be created to provide the services, which the grant funds would cover the position cost.  This committee met before the other two committees and approved 2 yeas -1 nays to the motion to approve the creation of the position to preform the services to the school.   So this motion will be presented to the full board to consider the recommendation of this new position even though the contract didn't come out of committee nor the acceptance of the funding or budget adjustment authorization.  This committee happened to be the first to review this contract request (personnal portion) before the others met.

So now my question is, since the contract approval recommendation didn't come out of committee as approving the contract, (the committee members are assuming that they voted are not approving the contract and that would be their recommendation, but no motion was made to state that and they think by the vote the resolution should be to the board that they are recommending not to approve contract), nor was the budgetary portion of this agreement and still is in committee (with the committee members assuming that they and not authorizing any budget adjustments by their vote, but no other motion was made to state that), but the new position is being presented to the full-board to consider since that committee approved this, is the new position committee resolution that will be presented to the full from only one committee of the total three indicating that this resolution is also approving the contract portion and the budgetary issue?  Our legal advisory stated that the same document was considered by three committees and if one approved just portion of it that the whole contract would be considered approved in its entery since they all had the same document to review.  Is this correct advise?   I hope I have explained this enough since it seems to be a different situation we have never been in before.  As I stated before nothing has every been "killed" as I might say in committee before and always been presented to full board for a full board vote no matter if the committee members agreed with the item or not.

[Josh Martin]

So now my question is, since the contract approval recommendation didn't come out of committee as approving the contract, (the committee members are assuming that they voted are not approving the contract and that would be their recommendation, but no motion was made to state that and they think by the vote the resolution should be to the board that they are recommending not to approve contract), nor was the budgetary portion of this agreement and still is in committee (with the committee members assuming that they and not authorizing any budget adjustments by their vote, but no other motion was made to state that), but the new position is being presented to the full-board to consider since that committee approved this, is the new position committee resolution that will be presented to the full from only one committee of the total three indicating that this resolution is also approving the contract portion and the budgetary issue?  Our legal advisory stated that the same document was considered by three committees and if one approved just portion of it that the whole contract would be considered approved in its entery since they all had the same document to review.  Is this correct advise?   I hope I have explained this enough since it seems to be a different situation we have never been in before.

 

RONR doesn't have rules for referring different parts of the same motion to three different committees simultaneously. If the board's rules provide for that, it will be up to the board and its legal advisors to figure out how that works. See RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 588-591 for some Principles of Interpretation.

 

As I stated before nothing has every been "killed" as I might say in committee before and always been presented to full board for a full board vote no matter if the committee members agreed with the item or not.

 

This is correct under RONR as well, but as I understand the facts provided, the committee has not yet voted to report the motion to the board. It is correct that once the committee does report the motion to the board, the board still has an opportunity to consider it regardless of what the committee recommends on the issue. If the committee takes to long to report the motion, the board can use the motion to Discharge a Committee to bring the matter before the board.

 

Of course, the additional facts suggest that the procedure you're following is... unique, and I'm not sure RONR is controlling.