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Caldwell County clerk reports loss of public records, including closed-session minutes, after server failure
Summary
The county clerk read into the record that files from a former clerk's online drive were corrupted by a failing server; closed-session minutes from June 3, 2019, through Nov. 15, 2021, were among the files noted as compromised.
Caldwell County Clerk Abby Rich informed the Board of Commissioners on Sept. 22 that public records kept in an online drive during the tenure of a previous clerk, Thomas Welch, were lost after the county's old server began corrupting files.
Rich said she read the notice into the official record at the direction of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. She told commissioners she could not list every lost file without a full inventory but identified the closed-session minutes from June 3, 2019, through Nov. 15, 2021, as the most notable compromised files.
According to Rich, the old server began failing and corrupting files before staff switched to a new server. County IT worked for about a week and a half attempting recovery but was unable to restore the corrupted files; backups were also corrupted. Rich described steps she has taken to reduce the risk of future loss: saving files on a desktop drive, using OneDrive cloud storage, retaining printed copies, and moving files to SharePoint.
Rich said no board action was required; the reading fulfilled the statutory requirement to place the loss on the official record.
Chair members thanked Rich for her diligence in attempting recovery and for implementing additional storage safeguards.
