Determining your record’s fiscal year end (FE) date is important for destroying that specific record on schedule. Read TSLAC’s recommendation for keeping a disposition log to understand consequences of destroying a record too early and TSLAC’s thoughts on keeping a record too long. Fiscal year (FY) is a 12-month period office’s use for accounting purposes.…
SLRM likes to make a fun post every April to celebrate RIM month. In the past, we’ve done Emoji Retention and RIM Mad Libs. It’s been a difficult RIM Month 2020 – with event cancellations, folks working from home, and everyone figuring out new workflows to serve Texans. We could all use a mirthful chuckle…
by Erica Rice [Updated 7/6/2020]: On July 2, 2020, the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued guidance requiring that all Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act grant documentation be retained for 5 years. Visit the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s website for more information about CARES funds. The analysts here at TSLAC…
by Erica Rice Every state agency and local government creates and maintains employee records. Often maintained in individual files for each employee, the personnel file is added to regularly throughout its active life, and it may often be consulted during its long inactive life. We create and use personnel records to hire, re-hire, train, evaluate,…
Updated February 2025 When you read TSLAC’s local government retention schedules (“local schedules”), you may notice the word “obsolete” pops up in lots of different places. Some folks ask us what we mean when we say obsolete. Obsolete generally refers to a record that is no longer active. How your records management program must treat…
I am not a naturally organized person. Last weekend, my husband watched me paw through a laundry basket of essentially all black clothes looking for a black tank top and the two I came up with weren’t the right one. But I have to be organized at work, because others need to find things quickly…
We know how to dispose of paper records. You can either destroy the records by burning or shredding them. Although these methods of destroying records may have been a viable option in the past, these same methods might not be enough to remove all traces of data from records being stored electronically. Before destroying an electronic…
Texas law authorizes state agencies and local governments in compliance to disposition a record under two conditions: (1) the record belongs to a record series on an approved records retention schedule and (2) its retention period has expired (Government Code §441.187; Local Government Records Act §202.001). As part of disposition, all Texas governments must use…