Carl, entities cease to exist all of the time in the public sector, but
the over all entity - the overarching jurisdiction itself and the people
it services - does not. Departments come and go, get reorganized, even
entirely disappear. Even local governments can appear and disappear
through consolidations, cutbacks, boundary changes, annexations. And
elected officials - entities in themselves - also turn over at a regular
basis. Yet the records of long term value continue to retain that value.


Its important in retention schedules to make them as simple as possible,
as in many environments they are not going to be implemented by rocket
scientists (admittedly, Rockwell International may be an exception to
that rule!). "Permanent" is clear cut - keep it and preserve it a long
time. "Life of entity" is not as clear cut - I could see elected
officials interpreting this as "time in office", for example. I could
also see a temporary worker somewhere asking the question "what's an
entity?" Trust me, the concept of department, office, bureau, etc...
flummoxes some enough. That's why we get so many calls from some of our
customers - 5000+ of them spread over multiple locations - who can only
tell us that they "work for the county" when we ask them where they are
located.

Perhaps it would be clearer if we said "Retain until end of civilization
as we know it".

Dwight Wallis, CRM
Records Administrator
Multnomah County Records Management Program
1620 SE 190th Avenue
Gresham, OR 97233
phone: (503)988-3741
fax: (503)988-3754
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