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State archives briefs council on GRAMA obligations, retention schedules and personal‑device risks
Summary
A Utah State Archives records specialist advised the council on GRAMA definitions, retention schedules (personnel records 65 years, payroll 7 years), archiving to state servers, and the public‑record risks of using personal devices for municipal business.
Maren Peterson, a records and information management specialist with the Utah State Archives, presented best practices for municipal records management and GRAMA compliance.
Peterson reviewed the statutory definition of a government record, stressed the importance of inventorying documents, and explained general retention schedules: for example, personnel records are held 65 years for retirement purposes while payroll records are retained for seven years. She emphasized that many commonplace items — emails, text messages and voice mails — can be public records if they relate to municipal business. Peterson advised separating personal and government accounts and recommended standard naming conventions, an annual or periodic routine for destroying transitory records, and transferring permanent records to the state archives for preservation on state servers.
Council members asked about migrating old .org emails to .gov, preservation of older records, and whether text messages are permanent. Peterson and staff explained that emails have a local retention of three years unless part of a policy decision or litigation, and text messages are generally transitory unless they document policy decisions. She offered to share a spreadsheet mapping typical council records to retention schedules and to help with naming and transfer procedures.
Next steps: staff to receive templates and retention‑mapping spreadsheet; council to consider standard storage and device separation to limit GRAMA exposure.
