Consent agendas
Bundle the routine votes so your meeting has time for the ones that actually need debate.
A consent agenda bundles routine, non-controversial items, approving prior minutes, ratifying a committee report, renewing an existing vendor contract at the same price, into one vote instead of debating each separately. Any director can ask that an item be pulled out for individual discussion before the vote happens. It is a time-saving meeting practice, not a procedure required by any state HOA statute or by Robert's Rules of Order.
What belongs on a consent agenda
A consent agenda groups the items nobody expects to debate, last meeting's minutes, a routine committee update, a vendor contract renewing at unchanged terms, into a single item that gets one vote instead of several. That frees the rest of the meeting for the items that actually need discussion.
No statute researched in this Course and no edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised defines a fixed consent-agenda procedure. It is a widely used meeting-management practice, not a legal requirement or a right guaranteed to members. Check your own bylaws for whether they mention it at all; most do not.
Any director can pull an item out
The safeguard that keeps a consent agenda honest: before the vote, any director can ask that one item be removed from the bundle and handled on its own, discussed and voted separately. The rest of the consent agenda then passes together as usual. If a board starts using the bundle to slide something contentious past without discussion, the fix is the same every time, someone pulls it.
It does not excuse the notice rules
A consent agenda is still made of agenda items, and your regular meeting's notice rules apply to them the same as anything else. Where a state open-meeting statute applies, the notice that goes out before the meeting has to list what will be voted on, a consent item included, not spring it on directors or members for the first time once everyone is in the room.
Notice of a regular board meeting must be provided "at least four days before the meeting" and "shall contain the agenda for the meeting."
Source: California Civil Code §4920, California Legislature
The board decides what lands on the consent agenda by adopting the full agenda, not the chair alone. Exact notice timelines and what counts as an emergency exception differ by state; see meeting notice requirements for what to check in yours.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
Your board wants to approve last meeting's minutes and renew the landscaping contract at the same price, without discussion. What's the right way to speed this up on the agenda?
Mid meeting, a director asks to pull the vendor renewal out of the consent agenda for its own discussion before the vote. What happens to that item?
A first-time board member insists Robert's Rules requires every board to run a consent agenda. Is that correct?
Sources
- Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 12th ed., Frequently Asked Questions, Robert's Rules Association
- California Civil Code §4920 (Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act), California Legislature
Board Meetings
Next, build the full agenda your consent items will live on: see Creating an agenda.
This lesson explains a general meeting-management practice, not legal advice. Whether your board may use a consent agenda, and what belongs on it, depends on your state's open-meeting statute and your own governing documents. Ask your association's attorney before changing your meeting procedure.