10-13-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STAFF REPORT TO: Mayor Keis and Members of the City Council FROM: Heidi Heller, City Clerk/HR Manager DATE: October 13, 2021 RE: Adopt the General Records Retention Schedule for Minnesota Cities ACTION TO BE CONSIDERED Adopt the General Records Retention Schedule for Minnesota Cities. BACKGROUND All types of government entities create and store many types of records, many of which are official documents that must be kept for long periods of time, or sometimes forever. Storage of these records takes up a lot of room, both physical space for paper documents and data storage for electronic records. An official retention schedule was created many years ago by the Minnesota Historical Society to help preserve important and official documents, but yet gives entities the flexibility to not have to store all records. Each type of government record is given a timeline on how long it must be kept. A city can choose to keep all records forever, but the amount of storage space and paper gets very overwhelming, and this schedule determines when each type of document can be destroyed. Many cities have moved to electronic record keeping instead of paper, and Little Canada has made good progress in doing this for our newly created records, but electronic records still take up data space which has a cost, so there is a benefit to being able to destroy both paper and electronic records. A committee of the Minnesota Clerks and Finance Officers Association continuously works to keep the Records Retention Schedule for Minnesota Cities current and updated, and every few years a new version is reviewed and approved by the Minnesota Records Disposition Panel. This panel has now approved the March 2021 version of the General Records Retention Schedule for Minnesota Cities. Cities do not have to adopt this particular schedule, but they should then adopt their own version in order to have official rules on what and how long each type of record must be kept. It appears the City of Little Canada first officially adopted the General Records Retention Schedule for Minnesota Cities in 1981, and again in 1991 as part of a records reorganization project. Once this schedule has been officially adopted, cities do not have to re-adopt each updated version. Since it has been 30 years since Council last adopted this records retention schedule, and now that there is a new version, staff is recommending that the Council take action in order to have updated documentation of the City’s adoption of the General Records Retention Schedule for Minnesota Cities. RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends Council adopt the General Records Retention Schedule for Minnesota Cities.