Record Retention Policy

POLICY STATEMENT
In accordance with legal or other educational system requirements, Premier College is required to retain and dispose records as designated by this policy.
REASON FOR POLICY
Premier College is obligated and committed to meeting legal regulatory standards and record management and maintenance, history preservation, and minimizing any threats of cost of record retention.
o •PROCEDURES
 Establishing proper record retention management practices:
• Each unit is responsible to implement these practices:
o •Educate administrative staff an understanding of record management procedure
o •Implement these practices
o •Ensure practices are within the realm of this policy
o •Preserve inactive records
 Legal
 Fiscal
• Administrative
• Historical value
o •Ensure

confidentiality within regulation of the law
o •Destroy records with no recent activity and no value as inactive records within the given expiration dates
Contact Records Manager with questions of responsibilities and policy implementation
•LEGAL
 Family Educational Rights
 Privacy Act
 Financial Aid/Records
 Employment Records
 Tax Records
 Electronic Documents
o Electronic Mail
 All email to be deleted after 6 months
 Email will be business-only
 No confidential content allowed in an electronic mail message or electronic file
• .pdf document
• Text or Word document
• Web Page Files
o Cookies
 To be deleted monthly
Active Data: Readily available data typically residing on network computer systems
• user hard drives, and other routinely accessible storage devices;
• Archive Data: Data maintained apart from active data for record-keeping purposes;
• Disaster Recovery Data: Data to restore the system in the event of system failure, often
• Overwritten by more recent backup data; and
• Residual and Legacy Data: Data not usually accessible, including hidden, deleted,
• Fragmented, or damaged data, or data created by no-longer-used software.

•Destroying Records/Documents
 Procedures
• Shredding documents after their expiration dates
 Hard drives are to be stored on a USB drive and then stored in a safe if it contains pertinent information
 Once the information has expired according to the company’s policy, the information on the hard drive is to be destroyed by software deletion programs or physically destroying the device.
• Stored Records
• Establish a file plan/structure for the drive/directory that will hold the incoming records. Know how much information is coming in and plan for how much additional information will be stored over time;

and
• Save individual documents to folders. Include the year the records were either created or received in the folder title; and
• Consider using or including the formal record series title as found on a UW records retention schedule in the folder title; and
• Consider using Acrobat Pro “Additional Metadata” in the Document Properties description tab to create background information on the document, (University of Washington, 2013).
 Original Document Date
 Document Type
 Cut-Off /Expiration Date (the date that triggers the count down on the retention period)
 Retention Period
 Keywords
 Index ID information (student number, budget number, EID, subject identifier, etc), (Records, 2013).
• Compliance by Law
• SOX
 Accounts payable ledger
 Accounts receivable ledger
 Time cards
 Product inventory
 Payroll records
 Tax returns
A retention period of seven years is required for:
• State sales tax information and returns
• Business expense records
• Invoices
• Bank statements
• Earning records
• Payroll tax records