MORGAN COUNTY — Since July 1, many local governing bodies are required by Indiana law to livestream their public meetings — from the town council in Bethany representing 97 residents to the Morgan County Drainage Board.
The law, House Enrolled Act 1167, was passed in 2023, but local governments were given two years to prepare before it took effect last month. Its goal is to increase transparency and make it easier for Hoosiers to access government meetings.
For some governing bodies that have been recording and posting their meetings online since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic or earlier, the law didn’t mean many changes. But for others with small populations and budgets, complying with the law is proving to be more difficult.
The law applies to the executive, legislative or fiscal body of a county, city, town or township, and school boards with elected members. Any other governing body that conducts its meetings in the same room as those bodies also have to comply with the law.
The bodies must livestream their public meetings and post the recordings, which must be available for 90 days after the meeting. The recordings should also include access to documents such as the meetings’ agendas and minutes.
Among the local governments that do livestream their meetings, it can be challenging to find the right link, from YouTube channels to Facebook pages to government websites. A provision in the law requires the bodies to include the website in their meeting notice, but most bodies didn’t know about the provision when asked and don’t include a link in their meeting agendas or public notices.
So here’s The Correspondent’s guide to help you find which government bodies livestream their meetings and how to watch them.
Morgan County
The Morgan County Board of Commissioners and the County Council have been posting recordings of meetings on the county’s YouTube page since 2020. Because other bodies meet in the same room — the Sadler Room in the administration building on South Main Street in Martinsville — they are also subject to the law. This includes the plan commission, the drainage board, the community corrections advisory board, the board of zoning appeals and the redevelopment commission.
Morgan County Administrator Josh Messmer said the county spent about $30,000 on equipment to livestream its meetings, though audio problems still sometimes plague.
Towns and cities
Martinsville began livestreaming meetings in 2019 using an iPad and Facebook, clerk-treasurer Ben Merida said. The city has upgraded since then to a commercial-grade camera to livestream on YouTube and Facebook simultaneously. Merida said the next step is to put the videos directly on the city’s website to make it even easier for the public to access the meetings.
Mooresville has been recording its meetings — including the town council, the park board, the board of zoning appeals, the redevelopment commission and the plan commission — on its website and YouTube channel since 2018, even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since 2024, Monrovia has been posting recordings of meetings with the town council, the board of zoning appeals, the plan commission, the redevelopment commission and the economic development commission on its YouTube channel.
In July, the Morgantown Town Council also began livestreaming meetings on YouTube. It is unclear if any other bodies meet in the same room as the town council and would therefore be subject to the law. The Correspondent was unsuccessful in its efforts to contact elected officials from Morgantown and Brooklyn.
But complying with the law isn’t as easy for the smaller towns. Some of them have a total yearly budget barely bigger than the $30,000 the county spent on its livestreaming equipment.
The town of Bethany has a budget of $40,000 for 2025, which is barely enough to keep it running, clerk-treasurer Cassandra Mercer said. She’s made improvements, Mercer said, but the town is not yet able to livestream its meetings.
“The town I work for is terribly small, and the council is mostly elder people,” Mercer said. “They lack the understanding and experience with technology.”
Paragon doesn’t livestream its meetings, and recordings aren’t accessible online, but people can come to the town hall to watch recordings afterwards, clerk-treasurer Angie Roberts said.
Township boards
Many of the 14 townships in Morgan County are facing the same problems as small towns.
Some township trustees were not aware of the law when The Correspondent reached out to them. Gregg Township Trustee Matt Bishop didn’t know about the law but said he will look into it, and Jefferson Township Trustee Jim Lankford said he didn’t know what livestreaming means.
Harrison Township Trustee Mike Jackson said he doesn’t think it is worth the trouble to livestream township meetings because no one has shown up to them since he’s been a trustee.
“There’s a growing number of support to do away with township government, so I don’t see the point in spending the money,” Jackson said.
Clay Township will livestream meetings on Zoom, board member Tony Burns said. He said it’s easy to do, and they already did it during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the public doesn’t seem to be interested in the meetings.
The Baker and Madison Township trustees said they are still figuring out how they will livestream their upcoming meetings.
Jackson Township will create a YouTube channel and livestream there using cameras and a laptop.
Adams Township Trustee Fred Glover said for small townships like Adams, with budgets of less than $100,000 and populations of less than 10,000 people, it’s not easy to comply with the law. He and his wife, the deputy trustee, are in their 60s and aren’t tech savvy, he said. They bought a $20 tripod and will figure out how to use his personal phone to livestream on the township’s Facebook page.
“It’s a bit frustrating that they would say, ‘Here, you just do this,’ and not give you any guidance, not give you any extra money,” Glover said.
The trustees from Ashland, Brown, Green, Jackson, Monroe, Ray and Washington townships did not respond to requests for comment.
School boards
All four school corporations and districts in Morgan County livestream their board meetings.
The Eminence Community School Corp. and the Monroe-Gregg School District began livestreaming on their respective YouTube channels this summer.
The Metropolitan School District of Martinsville also has a YouTube channel where it has been livestreaming since 2020.
The Mooresville Consolidated School Corp. began livestreaming its board meetings this summer on its Pioneer TV channel, which can be found on the homepage of its website.
