ERIN – It’s out with the old and in with the new, as the Town of Erin discards its old record retention schedule in favour of a new and more structured system.
“Over the past several months, staff has been working to develop a modernized records classification and retention schedule,” town records assistant Michelle Grundy told council on Sept. 11.
“[The document] will guide staff’s record keeping practices by informing them what categories the records they create or receive belong to and how long they should be kept.”
According to Grundy, the updated schedule will not only keep records more organized, it will also reduce storage costs as old records that are deemed fit for destruction are destroyed.
Councillors had many questions about the updated schedule.
“Can you give us any idea of how this is differing from the retention schedules we’ve had in the past?” asked councillor John Brennan.
“It’s a living document,” said Grundy. “It’s an ongoing document that gets updated based on different legislative requirements and business needs.”
Councillor Bridget Ryan inquired about the storage of documents and whether all documents and records would be stored online/virtually.
“It depends on the record and how long it’s being stored for,” said Grundy. “Whether we digitize something or keep it physical depends on how long it is being retained, the cost of it, so there is a lot of different factors.”
Mayor Michael Dehn voiced his concerns regarding retaining historically significant documents and records.
“Is there a set of documents that may not be significant to the municipality in 10 years but might be significant to heritage or to the archives at the county that instead of destroying them, we would transfer them onto a different government level to protect them?”
“Absolutely, so we’ve actually engaged with the archives already … and we’ve already found examples where we can archive some of our information and ensure its historical validity and importance to Wellington County,” said clerk Nina Lecic.
Council voted unanimously to replace the existing retention schedule with the new schedule.
