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Committee hears wide testimony on House File 428 to standardize correspondence retention; bill laid over for fiscal review
Summary
House File 428, proposing a standardized retention period for government correspondence, drew broad testimony from government attorneys, auditors, open‑government advocates and environmental groups. Committee members agreed to lay the bill over pending fiscal notes and further work on definitions and costs.
Chair Scott presented House File 428, saying the bill updates the definition of government correspondence to reflect electronic communications and would create a retention requirement intended to make records available for public oversight. “Some government entities are only keeping email correspondence for 30 to 60 days,” the chair said, and the bill seeks consistency across agencies.
Witnesses who supported standardizing retention described cases where missing correspondence impeded public oversight. Matt Ealing of Minnesotans for Open Government cited email exchanges that obscured the identity of a data‑center project proponent and communications around a managed‑care report…
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