Without any official guidance from the state, some local governments are destroying untold numbers of public documents by hitting the “delete” key.
The Local Government Records Committee, an obscure committee of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History that sets rules on government recordkeeping, held a special hearing Wednesday to discuss how local governments should deal with electronic documents, especially e-mail.
The committee adjourned without making a decision, and some members are concerned rules on preserving e-mail could unfairly burden small governments.
“I don’t think that the taxpayers want to burden local governments just so we can catch every wisp of information that is on the planet,” said committee member Warren McKinnon of the State Tax Commission.
Magnolia Tribune
