Alison Huftalen asked:  "Does your institution have an email retention policy and if so does it vary by position within the organization?"



Harris  County has developed something very close to what Alison asked. It is a GUIDELINE that explains how state law and county policy applies to e-mails and other electronic communications. It is under review by the County Attorney and we expect to present it to Commissioners Court later this year and then distributed to employees.



Key features include.



1.       A restatement of records retention requirements.

2.       An explanation of what constitutes an Official Record.

3.       An explanation of what constitutes a Transitory Record.

4.       A chart to guide employees distinguish between e-mails that are Official Records from those that are Transitory Records.

5.       It notes that most e-mails that are Official Records are handled in accordance with each department's file plan and become part of those records series.

6.       Other e-mails that are Official Records are classified either as Correspondence, Internal Memoranda, and Subject Files-Policy and Program Development (with 4 year retention) or as Correspondence, Internal Memoranda, and Subject Files-Administrative (with 2 year retention).

7.       Exempt employees will be the only ones responsible for "Policy and Program Development," so keeping their e-mails 4 years meets retention requirements.

8.       Non-exempt employees will only have "Administrative" e-mails, so keeping their e-mails 2 years meets retention requirements.

9.       All other e-mails are Transitory Records and may be discarded at any time unless there is a legal, audit, or investigative hold.

10.   A statement that there are multiple tools and methods to comply with retention requirements that various departments can adopt, in which case they can ignore the final feature;

10(a) Instructions on how to configure Microsoft Records Management in Outlook to create folders with 2 and 4 year retention settings.



I hope this helps.



Paul R. Scott, CA, CRM
Records Management Officer
Harris County, TX
713 274-7740

Under the Texas Public Information Act written communications to or from public employees may be considered to be public records and may be made available to the public and the media upon request.  This e-mail and any replies may be subject to public disclosure.




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