Policy 710 - Public Records Retention
I. PURPOSE
It is the policy of the Minnetonka School District that its records, including both paper and electronic, be retained only as long as determined necessary to meet legal, audit and management requirements, per the State of Minnesota’s School District General Records Retention Schedule. In each case, the official retention periods shall be as short as possible in order to minimize the use of valuable space, promote efficiency, assist in the day-to-day operations of the District, and reduce the cost of storage for unneeded records inventory.
II. GENERAL STATEMENT OF POLICY
Minnesota Statutes 138.17 provides a plan for managing governmental records by giving continuing authority to dispose of records. First, all or part of the School District General Records Retention Schedule must be adopted by the School Board. Once that is accomplished, the District must submit a Notification of Adoption form to the Records Disposition Panel. The Minnesota Historical Society will sign and return the Notification of Adoption form to the District. At that point the District will have the authority to dispose of records in accordance with the schedule.
Retention periods listed on the schedule represent the minimum amount of time that records must be retained. Once that retention period has been reached, records may either be destroyed or transferred to the State Archives, as indicated on the schedule. If some records series needs to be retained longer than the listed retention, then a building or department policy should be established for those records.
Records identified on the schedule as archival may not be transferred to a local historical society, museum, public library or interested individual without the specific, written permission of the State Archivist, Minnesota Historical Society.
The retention stated on the schedule applies to any form of the record (paper, computer tape or disk, microfilm, etc.). However, if the decision is made to change the form of the record (for instance, microfilming paper record), the original record MAY not be authorized to be disposed of. If changing the form of a record is being considered, contact the Minnesota Historical Society, State Archives Department.
Records that are destroyed according to the general schedule must be reported to the Minnesota Department of Administration and the Minnesota Historical Society (M.S. 138.17, Sub.7). Use a copy of the “Records Destruction Report” for this purpose.
Records not listed on the schedule cannot be destroyed without submitting either an “Application for Authority to Dispose of Records” or a Minnesota Records Retention Schedule.
Duplicate copies need not be retained.
The retention cited is the minimum amount of time a record must be kept.