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Committee recommends ordinances to formalize city records-retention schedules
Summary
The council's Finance & Law Committee advanced two ordinances to repeal the Records Management Advisory Commission chapter and add a formal citywide records retention schedule, after the City Clerk’s office outlined digitization work and a proposed approval process.
The Finance and Law Committee recommended two ordinances May 18 that would create a formal process for citywide records retention schedules and repeal an older advisory-commission provision. City records manager Nick Hartley told the committee the bills would let the city “put in place a mechanism to formally adopt records retention schedules.”
Hartley said the proposed manual would include a general schedule common to most departments and a process for departments to submit their own schedules for review and approval by a department director, the law department and the city clerk. He said the city has digitized its legislative record back to 1816 and has collected “over 10,000 cubic feet” of physical records and more than a million pages in an online digital repository.
Council members thanked Hartley and staff for the work to centralize retention guidance. Councilwoman Gross asked for a brief history of the effort; Hartley said the work began with the Commission on City Archives around 2012–13, the records management division was formed in 2018, and the digital repository launched about three years ago.
The committee read Bills 489 and 490 together: Bill 489 would repeal Chapter 179D (Records Management Advisory Commission) and Bill 490 would add Section 154.03 to create formal records retention schedules in the Pittsburgh City Code (Title 1). After discussion the committee recorded an affirmative recommendation.
The committee discussion emphasized that formal schedules are intended to reduce confusion about what departments retain, to make retention practices transparent across administrations and to provide a clear path for departments to submit schedules when organizational changes occur. Hartley said records that the city wants to transfer to the archives would have retention periods indicated, and the new process would make those decisions explicit.
The committee advance is a recommendation from a standing committee; the ordinances must still proceed through the council’s remaining legislative steps before becoming law.
