A Guide to Developing a Records

Management Plan

Ideally every city should have a citywide comprehensive records management plan that
includes policy and procedure for each individual agency within the city. A citywide
plan provides standardization throughout the city, creating efficiency, increased attention
to the importance of records management, better organization, and more space for storage
as unnecessary records are properly disposed. For those cities that do not have such a
plan, it is left up to each city agency to develop its own internal one.

In Florida where public records law is taken very seriously it is imperative for police
agencies to have a records management plan. Creating such a plan, when broken down
into its individual parts, is not too difficult of a project. Police records management plans
should include training, protocol, and policy that addresses public records law as well as
standard practices for records management in the public sector. The plan should be
drafted as a separate manual that can be referred to by personnel when needed throughout
the agency and should also be referred to within the S.O.P. that covers this area. A
simple reference in the S.O.P. that indicates to refer to your agencys records
management plan is much more efficient than including all of the information within an
S.O.P.
The agency should develop long-term goals that address 7 key areas. How to go about
meeting these goals will be described below in the elements of the plan. The goals
should include:

1. Maintaining compliance with Florida chapter 119 and 257 laws, and
Administrative Code 1B-24 and 1B-26.
2. Efficient access to active and inactive records (includes modern filing system
and imaging).
3. Addressing storage issues in order to maximize space by converting long-
term records to other formats (digital or microfilm).

Copyright 2008 Claughton Corps
4. Protection of records from decay, natural disasters, and terrorism.
5. Retention of records in a secure manner that prevents unauthorized access.
6. Provisions for disaster recovery.
7. Protocol for the timely destruction of records according to retention periods.

Below are the basic elements that a plan should have which if implemented correctly will
have provisions to meet the above listed goals. This document should be used as a
template or a guide to help agencies get started down the road of organizing information
and improving its records management practices. Remember that a Records Management
Plan is the heart of what should be an ongoing Records Management Program for the
agency. It is a process that is attended to daily, designed to protect the agency from
potential litigation or disastrous consequences due to an inability to properly create,
locate, or maintain critical information. Note this does NOT mean that you should keep
everything you have as long as you possibly can. In fact when agencies become the party
of a lawsuit, the evidence most commonly used against them are the very documents that
were kept for the purposes of protecting it! Information can be easily manipulated and
keeping records should be done so in accordance with state retention schedules as well as
finding a proper balance between liability, the need for intelligence, and accreditation
standards. The elements include the following: collection, processing, maintenance,
dissemination, and destruction.

NOTE: The Florida Department of State, Division of Library and Information Services,
and Florida Administrative Code have very specific legal requirements regarding records
management programs. Refer to the Department of State website for detailed
information pertaining to these requirements. FSS 257.36(5) instructs public agencies to
establish a records management program to include record inventories, scheduling, and
dispositioning.

Lastly, once an agency establishes a records management plan it is imperative to provide
training to personnel throughout the agency. Training is necessary for the success of
sound records management for any agency and must be conducted in order to mitigate
liability stemming from violations of public records law or lost records.
Copyright 2008 Claughton Corps

Elements of a police records management plan

Collection

The collection portion of the plan should address policy/protocol as to how records
(electronic and paper) are collected from their birth. This means for example starting
from the point that an officer writes a report or simple notes that will later be converted
into a report. It would also include documents that come into the possession of the
agency by other means (mail, fax, email, etc). How they are collected specifically means
describing the workflow of these items (process by which reports are collected and sent
to their ultimate destination). This includes the how and by who they are collected.

It also includes the taking of an inventory of what the agency currently has in its
possession and separating it into the 4 categories specified by the Florida Department of
State retention requirements: 1) records within retention, records past retention, records
with no approved retention, and records that should be converted to another format due to
long term requirements.

Processing

The processing portion of the plan serves two functions. First, record scheduling should
occur in a systematic manner that is thoroughly documented and approved. This is a
lengthy process by which all retention dates are determined for all of the agencies
records. Refer to the Department of State for detailed information.

Secondly, this phase describes what specific information (paper or electronic) needs to be
physically processed by personnel and who will process it. Examples include processing
police reports, public records requests, administrative documents, statistical reports, etc.
Workflows can be included here as well which denote processing methodologies.

Maintenance

The maintenance portion of the plan describes protocol for the proper storage of
information (electronic and paper) throughout the agency. This includes filing, indexing,
electronic storage, and off-site storage. Consideration should be given to the proper
separation of hot files, cold files, archived cases, juvenile cases, sealed/expunged cases,
and any other required separation as indicated by law or accreditation standards.




Copyright 2008 Claughton Corps


Dissemination

This section describes the methodology for distributing information within and outside
the agency in accordance with departmental policy and Florida law. This includes
protocol for sending records internally to other areas of the department, providing them to
other government agencies, and releasing them to the public. Policy should include
timeframe requirements for getting reports reviewed and approved (by both records
personnel and patrol supervisors). Policy should also address who is authorized to
release the information and who is the Records Management Liaison Officer. Florida is
an open records state. The determination of what records are public is determined strictly
by law and is a part of Floridas state Constitution.

Disposition

The destruction of public records is also regulated by the Department of State. Prior
approval from the State is no longer required (as of 2001) to destroy records. This
portion of the plan should be conducted in a most systematic fashion with thorough
documentation at each step of the process. The disposition of records is the application
of approved records retention schedules to records series titles. Policy should include
who is responsible throughout the agency for coordinating the destruction of their
respective records, when it is to be done, and how it is to be done.

A master records disposition list (sample available at the DOS website) should be
compiled listing each records series titles, inclusive destruction dates, and an indication
(and signature) of the authorizing city representative.

Responsibility for disposition should be shared throughout the agency. This is
accomplished by designating records Coordinators in each division that are responsible
for divisional records.

Resources:

http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us Dept. of State

www.frma.com Florida Records Management Association

www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes Florida Statutes

www.floridafaf.org First Amendment Foundation (manuals)

www.edocmagazine.com AIIM





Copyright 2008 Claughton Corps