County Mayor Weston Wamp has asked the Hamilton County Public Records Commission to review the policy regarding the length of storage for emails throughout county government and "ensure the county is complying with state recommended guidelines regarding email retention."
His office said, "This comes after Mayor Wamp and his staff were made aware of a longstanding policy which appears to evade the intent of state guidelines.
"Mayor Wamp was informed that the county is required to store emails for only ten days before automatically deleting. County Technical Assistance Service (CTAS) recommends storing “correspondence files” for five years, and before disposal, the county should appraise the file for continuing administrative usefulness or historical value.
"Since 2004, Hamilton County Government has been operating under the assumption that all deleted emails are defined as ‘working documents’ according to TCA 10-7-301(14), making them “obsolete” once they were deleted.
"The county currently has no review process in place to ensure that relevant emails are stored for the recommended time frame.
“In an effort to bring accountability and transparency to county government, it is time to close this inappropriate loophole and align our policies with best practices as recommended by the state. Deleting important information, especially without reviewing it, is not good government.
"In recent years, policies overseen by the county attorney’s office allowing for the destruction of open records requests violated public trust. The citizens of Hamilton County deserve more transparency from county government.”