Diane,

You have received some excellent advice by some of the very best. Since you did not mention your retention scheduling process as a whole, I want to back up a bit to give you the big picture of retention research. It is more than just legal requirements:

Legal category 2: Your contracts. Review them to see if they specify a retention period for records related to the contracts. Government contracts will often specify this. Also check statutes of limitations for time limits on legal actions related to contracts. These are not retention requirements, but do give some indication of how long you'll need records related to contracts to use in a lawsuit.

Fiscal: When I was doing research into retention requirements, I periodically met a man in a local parking garage who never let me see his face, but always told me: "Follow the money." In addition to statutes re: tax records, you must also know audit periods and audit trails to determine which fiscal records to keep and for how long.

Admin/Operational: Your records have operational value to your staff. For each record series you must interview staff to find out what that value is and how long that value lasts. For most records it will be a finite period.

Historical: A small % of your firm's records will document the history and development of your firm. These should be kept permanently.

You should also check out the ARMA Bookstore. It has some excellent texts that detail records retention scheduling and records management programs as a whole.

Good Luck!
Gary Link
Astorino
Pittsburgh, PA



-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Mark Walsh
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 7:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Help with Retention Schedule


In addition to Peter's suggestions, you may wish to visit
http://leg1.state.va.us/000/src.htm to search the Code of Virginia.

Cheers!

Mark


G. Mark Walsh, C.A.
Records & Information Analyst
Records Management and Imaging Services
Library of Virginia
(804) 692-3650
Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
[log in to unmask]
Richmond, Va

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