Has anyone had experience with whether BBB's come under the Open Meetings Act and must publish their agendas ahead of time?

This may be of some help. A.G.'s office considers BBB's to be governmental entities. See Open Records letter 96-1625 (Tarrant County).

Mark, thanks for the cite. OR 96-1625 is a chapter 552 letter, and entities may be public for information purposes but not necessarily for open meetings purposes. The definitions are close enough, however, that I should probably advise the powers that be to post agendas ahead of time. Funny that the question does not seem to have arisen in the open meetings arena.

It would appear that, in the absence of any other applicable sub-definition, a bail bond board would fall within section 551.001(3)(D). That is, it is a "deliberative body that has rulemaking or quasi-judicial power and that is classified as a department, agency or political subdivision of a county or municipality." Quasi-judicial power can be identified through looking at a variety of non-exclusive factors, such as:

(1) the power to exercise judgment and discretion;
(2) the power to hear and determine or to ascertain facts and decide;
(3) the power to make binding orders and judgments;
(4) the power to affect the personal or property rights of private persons;
(5) the power to examine witnesses, to compel the attendance of witnesses, and to hear the litigation of issues on a hearing; and
(6) the power to enforce decisions or impose penalties.

City of Austin v. Evans, 794 S.W.2d 78, 83 (Tex. App.--Austin 1990, no writ). Bail bond boards can easily be argued to exercise the functions numbered (1) through (4) and (6) under Evans, which also pointed out that the more of these functions an entity carries out, the more clearly the entity exercises quasi-judicial power. For good measure, bail bond boards also have authority to make rules regulating the bail bond business in the county. Thus, the most prudent course is to presume the board is a covered entity under the Open Meetings Act and post its agenda. We do.

Since our BBB was created, we have assumed that we are under the Open Meetings Act and posted agendas and had open meetings. If there is a need for an "executive session", we include in the agenda that the board may have an executive session.