Whitefish council adopts resolution allowing staff to destroy municipal records under state retention schedule

The Whitefish City Council on Aug. 3 adopted Resolution 26‑20, which authorizes city staff to destroy municipal records that have met retention periods set in Schedule 8 of Montana’s local-government records retention rules. City Attorney Angela told the council Schedule 8 sets minimum retention periods and that the resolution would provide a streamlined, blanket authority so staff need not present each purge request to the council.

Council discussion focused on electronic records and IT capacity. IT Director Chris Hunt said the city stores documents both locally and in the cloud, estimated roughly five terabytes of included cloud storage before additional cost, and told the council "we're looking in the neighborhood of about $294,000 for a server with 10 terabytes of storage." Hunt described using Microsoft Purview to classify documents, apply automated retention schedules and issue 30‑day deletion notices, and noted litigation holds can preserve records when needed.

A friendly amendment from a councilor to require that the city retain electronic records for a minimum of five years was debated and then failed on a 3–2 vote. Councilor Steve moved the resolution with a change in section 1 from the word "shall" to "may" to clarify it grants discretion to the city clerk or designee; the motion carried 4–1 with Councilor Davis recorded in opposition. Councilors and staff agreed to return with options for an annual report or a more detailed electronic‑records policy.

Why it matters: The resolution formalizes a routine records‑management practice but prompted a technical and budget discussion about the city's ability to store electronic records long term and how to preserve records needed for litigation or public records requests.