At a recent Ballwin Board of Aldermen meeting that I attended, local officials had questions about whether or not the state would allow the city to store permanent records electronically rather than in paper files. I looked into the issue to provide some clarity on the state regulations. According to the Local Records Division of the Secretary of State’s (SOS) office, the state cannot dictate how cities and local governments maintain their records.
The 2013 Missouri Local Government Records Management Guidelines state, “RSMo (Missouri Revised Statutes) 109.280 grants agency heads the authority to determine the nature and form of their agency records—so, maintaining a ‘paperless’ office is the prerogative of the local official.”
The SOS’s records management guidelines do warn, however, that records stored only on electronic media could someday become inaccessible. Officials run the risk of the media becoming obsolete or corrupted. Periodically transferring records to preservation media, such as microfilm, is considered a best practice.
Find out what's happening in Chesterfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
As technology advances, public officials and citizens will have to evaluate the risks and determine which records, if any, should be stored electronically. We all have a stake in preserving our community’s legal and political records safely and efficiently. Striking a balance between these aims is not always easy, but I am pleased to see that Ballwin is bringing up the issue for public discussion.