By now, you have probably read in a July 21, 2016 memo that
the State Court Administrative Office is revising the record retention and
disposal schedule and developing statewide policy, standards, and guidelines
for creating, maintaining, and disposing of court records. This includes considering a policy that would
mandate disposal of court records. Any
such policy will be applied to records created from the date of the new
retention schedules. How a mandatory
disposal policy is applied retroactively to court records is yet to be determined
and will depend upon a number of factors, including the completeness and accuracy
of case history (registers of action), which is the single most important
long-term court record.
Why the change?
- Courts are running out of space. Whether onsite or offsite, the costs associated with maintaining records beyond their useful legal and administrative use to the courts and litigants are becoming harder to justify in many counties.
- Public expectation that all records should eventually be available electronically places pressure on courts to unnecessarily scan old records that are already eligible for disposal under the existing record retention and disposal schedule. This is an unnecessary expense.
- A consistent statewide policy as to what records are available to the public is prudent and fair to everyone. Such a policy 1) provides a comparable body of records from one court to another, 2) reduces inefficiencies in search and retrieval, 3) reduces unnecessary storage costs, and 4) creates equality. Court users can be both hurt and helped by record availability when seeking things such as visas, licenses, housing, jobs, and driving privilege.
- Courts do not have the facilities, resources, or funding to permanently maintain records of historical significance. Inadequate storage methods for paper and microfilm, insufficient resources to monitor the quality of records in storage, and procuring funding for ever-expanding storage needs is becoming more and more challenging for the courts. The Archives of Michigan is the most appropriate entity for preserving records of historical significance.
- E-filing is on its way, along with electronic document management. Did you know that while the cost of storage and hosting 30,000 digital images is only about $72 a year, there is usually an annual access fee for every user that may be in the hundreds of dollars? Also, those images must be migrated to a new format every seven years at a cost of $2,576 per 30,000 images? That means the statewide cost to maintain one filing year of cases in digital format would be over $12,000,000. At full capacity, that means $12,000,000 annually, indefinitely. A mandatory disposal policy and compliance with that policy is essential to reduce this unnecessary financial burden.
What does this mean
for the courts?
- Courts will be able to better manage existing paper records, both active and inactive. Through standards and guidelines established by the SCAO, courts can implement practices that will help with case processing, documenting adequate case history for long-term retention, and organizing records in a manner that facilitates the disposal process.
- Case management systems will need to produce critical case-history reports for certain types of cases. Primarily for civil, criminal, and juvenile cases in the circuit court, this process will ensure that existing automated case history is accurate and complete, and will enable courts to transfer or destroy case files when eligible for disposal.
- Courts will have to process records for disposal.
- Courts should evaluate the appropriate method for long-term storage of their records and how to better organize records for disposal and transfer. There is no one best method. Depending on any number of factors, a different method may be appropriate for each of the types of records the court maintains.
- Courts will implement new practices that will facilitate management and future disposal of electronic records. This is the lynchpin for a successful statewide e-filing and electronic document management system.
How is the SCAO going
to help?
The SCAO will help courts with the records disposal project
and the transition from paper to electronic records in a number of ways. Some of these are:
- Developing and updating standards and guidelines for creating, managing, and disposing electronic data and records.
- Conducting training.
- Working with you to establish individualized court plans for transferring and destroying paper, microfilm/microfiche, and electronic records eligible for disposal under the new retention and disposal schedules.
- Providing mechanisms for generating reports that identify missing case-history data.
- Providing mechanisms for generating records-disposal inventories that save time documenting records eligible for disposal.
- Facilitating arrangements with Archives of Michigan to review, cull through, and transport records.
Questions? Contact me
at TrialCourtServices@courts.mi.gov
or 517-373-4864.