Good morning (afternoon to us here in the eastern part of the country) Blake:
 
I'll give you a bit of what I can remember as a corporate and municipal records manager along with a bit more info on the topic that comes to mind.
 
At my current client (a small US Government Agency) records disposition files are part of the Administrative Records Series, a part of the Admin Bucket.  They are kept for seven years after the end of the fiscal year in which the records were destroyed or transfered to the National Archives.  Federal Government-wide, for agencies that follow the NARA General Records Schedules the retention period is six years from the date of transfer or destruction.
 
Where I worked as a Municipal Records Administrator the retention period is three years after destruction.
 
I do not remember the retention period for the organization where I was a corporate records manager, but it was likely somewhere in the range of the others I have noted.  In this position we kept three different types of certificates of destruction.  I will also note that our storage and destruction vendor (on and off-site) was that very very large records management vendor...
 
The first type of certificate was for those records stored off-site at the vendor locations.  It was detailed to the box level and in some cases we could linked that back to more detailed information depending what the particular department kept.
 
The second was the certificates for the on-site destruction every two weeks (materials put in locked consoles/cans).  This was just a number of cans/consoles by department.  It gave me also a reading of how full the cans were.  We used this volume information to report to the jusisdictions where we had to document recycling.  Much of what was disposed of here was likely non-records.  Working files with PII or similar information.
 
The third type was a home-grown form for departments that had volumes records kept on-site that never went to vendor storage prior to reaching the end of the required retention period.  It gave us date range, volume disposed of, and record series/type.
 
The first and third types also had audit trails of those who had reviewed and approved the destruction.  I had final sign off on all authorizations of these.
 
Hope this helps!
 
Tod Chernikoff, CRM
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www.twitter.com/tchernik

 

 Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2012 11:36:31 -0700
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Record of Destruction
To: [log in to unmask]
 
 Good Friday morning to my fellow records and information management professionals. I would like your opinion on the following matter. Do you keep a record of destruction? If so, what information/metadata do you keep about the records you (or your vendor) have destroyed? How long do you keep records of destruction? How about certificates of
destruction - in many cases the certificates provided by shred vendors are vague; they provide a date and tonnage, but you are unable to trace the certificate back to a specific record or boxes of records?
 
 I have always kept a record of destruction, but as time passes, I am starting to question the value and risk mitigation it provides. I would like to rely more on policy, audits and the retention schedule as proof of destruction. As always, I would appreciate your thoughts. 
 
 Sincerely
 
 
Blake E. Richardson, CIP, CRM
 
Manager of Records
Safeway Inc.
20427 N. 27th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85027
623.869.3875 		 	   		  
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