Trainings

Pursuant to R.C. 109.43, all elected officials or an official’s designee, are required to attend a three-hour Sunshine Laws training that is certified by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. The training must be completed once per elected term.

The training requirement can be satisfied by completing one of the two types of training offered by the Attorney General’s Office: the virtual webinar or on-demand video series. The Ohio Auditor of State’s Office also conducts trainings that satisfy this requirement. More information about trainings through the Auditor of State’s Office can be found here.

The Ohio Revised Code broadly defines an “elected official” as “an official elected to local or statewide office.” Note, though, that the act explicitly states that an “elected official” does not include the chief justice or a justice of the supreme court, a judge of a court of appeals, court of common pleas, municipal court, county court, or a clerk of any of those courts.

The act states that a “[d]esignee” may be a designee of one elected public official or of all the elected officials of a public office if that public office includes more than one elected official. The statute does not provide a definition of an “appropriate” designee, but the term implies an official or employee of the same public office with an appropriate connection to the training requirement.

Proof of attendance is available on the Ohio Attorney General’s website and can be downloaded about 72 hours after completing the training. The office does not issue paper attendance certificates. Compliance with this training requirement is audited by the Ohio Auditor of State through a regular financial audit.