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DALLAS COUNTY, IA CHAPTER 9 TITLE I – POLICY AND ADMINISTRATIVE CHAPTER 9 AN ORDINANCE REGARDING THE RETENTION AND DESTRUCTION OF COUNTY RECORDS 9.01 Purpose 9.05 Destruction of Records 9.02 Definitions 9.06 Format Neutrality 9.03 County Records Retention 9.07 Severability 9.04 Retention of Records Beyond Scheduled Period 9.08 Effective Date 9.01 PURPOSE. An ordinance for the purpose of ensuring that Dallas County public records are properly stored, maintained, appraised, and destroyed. 9.02 DEFINITIONS. 1. "Archives" means the collection of County records that have been deemed to have sufficient historical, research, evidentiary, or informational value to warrant preservation. 2. “Local law” means the ordinances and regulations of Dallas County, Iowa. 3. “Non-Transitory Record” means any record that is not a Transitory Record. 4. "Record" means a document, book, paper, electronic record, digital record, photograph, sound recording, or other material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made, produced, executed, or received pursuant to law in connection with the transaction of official business of Dallas County government. 'Record' does not include reference copies or library and museum material made or acquired and preserved solely for reference or exhibition purposes or stocks of publications and unprocessed forms. 5. “State” means the State of Iowa. 6. “Transitory Record” means any record, irrespective of format, that facilitates county action on a temporary basis, that has only short-term interest or usage, and that has no or little value in conducting county business. Examples of Transitory Records include, but are not limited to: a. Communications related to routine and publicly-available information that requires no administrative action, no policy decision, and no special compilation or research for reply. (E.g. reports, publications, brochures, etc.) This does not include open records requests under Iowa Code Ch. 22. b. Transmittal or routing records that accompany an email, facsimile or other record, such as a cover sheet, that do not add any substantive information to the transmitted record. ---PAGE BREAK--- DALLAS COUNTY, IA CHAPTER 9 TITLE I – POLICY AND ADMINISTRATIVE c. Internal notices of fire drills, retirements, IT help desk reminders, communications to set a date and time for a meeting, holidays, charitable events, out of office messages, building notifications or similar routine matters that do not serve as the basis of official actions. 9.03 COUNTY RECORDS RETENTION. 1. Iowa County Records Retention Manual Adopted. The retention of County records shall be governed by the Iowa County Records Retention Manual (ICRRM) published by the Iowa State Association of Counties, as amended or revised, unless a different retention period is specified by federal or State law. 2. Non-Transitory Record Retention. All County Non-Transitory Records that are not listed in a retention schedule included in the ICRRM shall be retained for ten (10) years unless a different retention period is specified by federal or State law. 3. Transitory Record Retention. Where not in conflict with existing federal, State or local law, Transitory Records may be destroyed whenever they are no longer needed for reference as long as they are not the subject of a pending public records request or an existing retention schedule that requires a longer retention period. 9.04 RETENTION OF RECORDS BEYOND SCHEDULED PERIOD. If the applicable maximum retention period for a County record has been reached, or if the record is a Transitory Record subject to destruction, the record must nonetheless be retained under the following circumstances: 1. The record is subject to a pending, unfulfilled records request under Iowa Code Ch. 22; 2. The subject matter of the record is pertinent to pending litigation or a pending audit; 3. The County department head or other record custodian retaining the record makes a written determination that the record holds sufficient historical, research, evidentiary, or informational value to warrant preservation and that the record should be transferred to the custody of the County Archives. 9.05 DESTRUCTION OF RECORDS. 1. If the applicable retention period for a County record has been reached and the record does not need to be retained under section 9.04, another local law, State law, or federal law, then the record may be destroyed in the manner described in this section. 2. Persons Authorized to Destroy Records. Non-Transitory Records may only be destroyed by the department head of the county department retaining the record. Transitory Records may be destroyed by any County employee. ---PAGE BREAK--- DALLAS COUNTY, IA CHAPTER 9 TITLE I – POLICY AND ADMINISTRATIVE 3. Manner of Destruction. Records scheduled for destruction may be destroyed in any manner that renders the content unusable and unreadable. For physical records, this includes, but is not limited to, shredding or burning the record. For electronic or digital records, this includes, but is not limited to, permanently deleting, overwriting, degaussing or physically destroying the storage medium. 4. Destruction Certificate Required for Non-Transitory Records. The destruction of Non- Transitory Records must be documented by creating a destruction certificate. The destruction certificate must indicate the date, time, place, and manner of destruction, as well as the individual who destroyed the document(s) and a witness to the destruction. All destruction certificates must be signed by the department head of the county department that had been retaining the Non-Transitory Record(s). Destruction certificates shall be retained by the County Board of Supervisors and must be retained in electronic or digital format. Transitory Records may be destroyed without a destruction certificate. 9.06 FORMAT NEUTRALITY. 1. Where not in conflict with existing federal, State or local law, all County Records may be retained in any format, including electronic, digital, or physical format. County departments may convert content from one record format to another to accommodate departmental needs and technological advancement. The content in all preserved records, irrespective of format, must always be completely accessible for the entire length of the scheduled retention. Departments must assure the content in the record formats they preserve per retention schedule is viable, verifiable, searchable and retrievable. 2. Destruction of Duplicative Records Permitted. Duplicative record formats may be destroyed once the record exists in its final format for retention unless a statute, regulation or an order of any court or other adjudicative body with jurisdiction, prescribes the format for maintaining records or proscribes the destruction of existing record formats. a. A record is “duplicative” if it has been copied into another format that is equally accessible, readily capable of being produced in response to any open records or discovery request, and contains one-hundred percent of the information contained in the original format. 9.07 SEVERABILITY. If any of the provisions of this ordinance are for any reason illegal or void, then the lawful provisions of this document which are separable from the unlawful provision shall be and remain in full force and effect, the same as if the ordinance contained no illegal or void provisions. 9.08 EFFECTIVE DATE. This ordinance becomes effective upon publication.