I've done a small bit of research to see if I can understand what may have 
changed in the 20+ years since I worked for the Illinois State Archives. I'm 
speaking for myself and not officially in any capacity. Any errors in fact or 
interpretation are my own.

Disposition of local government records in Illinois is governed by the Local 
Records Act (50 ILCS 205). The Village straddles the Cook County / Lake County 
line and I am not certain which county has jurisdiction over the seat of 
government. This is somewhat important because the disposition of records in 
Illinois is ultimately governed by either the Local Records Commission of Cook 
County or the "Downstate" Local Records Commission, which governs the other 101 
counties of Illinois. Their rules are pretty much the same, but there can be 
variances between the actions of the two Commissions.

Illinois defines a Public Record in what many of us would consider the 
traditional manner. The Act provides a definition of non-record and speaks to 
disposition of non-records:

(50 ILCS 205/9) (from Ch. 116, par. 43.109)
    Sec. 9. Nonrecord materials or materials not included within the definition 
of records as contained in this Act may be destroyed at any time by the agency 
in possession of such materials without the prior approval of the Commission. 
The Commission may formulate advisory procedures and interpretations to guide in 
the disposition of nonrecord materials.


In general, the disposition of Public Records is governed by the Commissions and 
through the activity of the Illinois State Archives. The State Archives provides 
some guidance for electronic records at 
http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/records_management/electrecs.html,
 but has not published more recent or specific guidance for e-mail on the 
Internet. Most of the guidance is provided for digitization of paper records, 
replacing and enhancing prior guidance for microfilm.

The bottom line is that Illinois provides for both records and non-records as 
defined in the statute. The disposition of non-records is at the sole discretion 
of the local government agency. It would appear from the text of the policy and 
the newspaper article that Buffalo Grove is attempting to deal with the tsunami 
of email that most organizations endure each day. In the case of this email 
system, 80% of inbound email is spam. What is left unsaid in the article is 
whether or not the spam is being filtered (and they'd like to get rid of the 
spam that is being collected) or if the spam is flowing through to employees. 
either way, simply eliminating spam legally would be a heckuva start. After 
that, they appear to want to eliminate purely non-record email, although that is 
at the discretion of each employee. Their definition of non-record varies from 
the Local Records Act, so I would find that problematic. I also find problematic 
their definition of email as "text documents which are created, stored and 
delivered in an electronic format." That was true 15 years ago, but with so many 
messages including graphics, sound, or video, the definition is already out of 
date. In addition, I would argue that their definition makes an instant message 
an "email message". They also do not define how public officials should handle 
email received on other email systems that relates to their public office. 
Messages received on smartphones or similar devices is not addressed. Lastly, 
they speak to "personal" email as having to do with communications between 
"family and friends"..."not related to work". That leaves a lot of room for 
abuse.

The policy is very flawed, and I would suggest that a model ordinance is needed 
for local governments in Illinois. In addition, the Better Government 
Association sticks their nose in this mess and brings up the Illinois FOIA law, 
which muddies the issue. I suspect that the need for this policy / ordinance is 
being driven by some political issues in Buffalo Grove, based upon the newspaper 
article and some of the comments to the article. Citizens tend to think the 
worst when a governmental body gets rid of documentation, regardless of the real 
value or status of the documentation. It always comes across as looking like 
someone is hiding something.

My guess is also that the Village is attempting to try to bring some guard rails 
to the issue by passing an ordinance that ensures that employees can be held 
accountable for violations of the ordinance -- although it is written as 
"policy", rather than a true ordinance, which has the force of local law. I'm 
not certain how many local governments actually deal with records by policy or 
local ordinance. Retention schedules in Illinois have historically been created 
by the Illinois State Archives and provided to the local government. 


It appears that the Village attorney is going to redraft this thing, hopefully 
in consultation with the Illinois State Archives.

 Patrick Cunningham, CRM, FAI
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"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." 
-- Colin Powell

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