Shasta supervisors approve 2-year Outlook email retention after debate over records access

Shasta County supervisors on Tuesday approved a policy change that will move county Outlook email toward a two-year rolling retention period, after a lengthy discussion over records preservation, public access and the workload created by public-records requests.

The board took up the change as part of a broader update to the county administrative manual during its June 30 meeting, according to the meeting transcript. Staff said the county would keep records tied to litigation, audits or investigations, and that legally required records would still be retained.

Deputy County Executive Officer Stewart Buettell told supervisors the county’s Outlook system was never intended to serve as a long-term archive and said the proposal was meant to make retention rules more consistent across departments. He also said the county already deletes some records under existing retention schedules.

Supervisor Long pressed staff on whether the board could adopt something other than the one-year retention period originally proposed and asked about a grace period so employees could sort out emails they wanted moved to permanent storage. After discussion, Long moved to amend the item so the email-retention portion would keep messages for two years, with a one-month grace period. Supervisor Crye voted no; Supervisors Kelstrom, Harmon and Long voted yes, and the amended item passed 3-1.

During the same discussion, supervisors and members of the public raised concerns that deleting emails too quickly could make it harder to find records in future disputes or public-records requests. Staff and county counsel said litigation holds would suspend deletions when necessary, but supervisors also asked whether the policy could affect searches for older emails from former officials.

The manual update also included other policy changes, including procurement and signing-authority revisions, a county refund policy and a revised HIPAA/privacy policy, according to the transcript. Later in the meeting, the board also voted 4-0 to support a bill on public-records request response timelines.