by Bill Atkinson
A state subcommittee will recommend that Virginia look at revising the Public Records Act to codify a procedure for storing electronic records.
The panel, which is studying overall operations of Virginia agencies, boards and commissions, will ask the 2004 General Assembly to authorize the study, which comes at the request of the Library of Virginia.
“It’s time to take another look at the Public Records Act as we move further into the electronic age,” said Nolan T. Yelich, director of the state library. He called the study “a healthy exercise, something that needs to happen.”
Yelich made his comments during a Sept. 15 meeting of the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, of which he is a member. The state subcommittee asking for the study met the following day.
The state Public Records Act establishes ” a single body of law applicable to all public officers and employees on the subject of public records management and preservation.” It was established before e-mails and electronic documentation became a standard practice.
A revised PRA, according to a report from the library, would provide the authority to “establish and maintain guidelines or regulations for the creation, transfer and archival preservation of electronic state records and publications [and for the] official authentication of e-records and documents.”
The issue of electronic records retention — particularly e-mails — has been a thorny one for state employees wondering what needs to be kept and for how long.
The state library has always advised people that e-mails that address public business need to be retained in some form because they are public records.
Roger Wiley, a Richmond lawyer and member of the FOI Advisory Council, repeated his lament that e-mail retention requirements may scare some people from government service, especially on local governing bodies.
These folks, he said, often use their personal computers to send e-mails, and having to create a separate storage bin for these e-mails creates an undue burden for a job where the pay is often very low.
State Sen. R. Edward Houck, DSpotsylvania and chairman of the FOI Advisory Council, said the burden Wiley notes “is part of the cost of government service. ” When you’re elected, you just have to take these things on,” he added.
Bill Atkinson is the publications editor for the Virginia Press Association. Nolan T. Yelich