[HISTORY: Adopted by the Town Council of the Town of Southington 4-23-2001 (Ch. 2, Art.
V, of the 1989 Code). Amendments noted where applicable.]
There shall be an archives, records and information services
program to direct the orderly and systematic handling of records of
the Town, to ensure their secure storage and preservation, and to
aid the efficient organization and retrieval of information. The program
will administer a records management program, a records center, an
archives and an information center.
For the purposes of this chapter, the following terms shall
have the meanings indicated:
A board made up of the Town Clerk, Town Attorney, Finance
Director and the Town Manager's Executive Secretary.
The process of determining the value and thus the disposition
of records based upon their administrative, legal, fiscal, informational,
historical or archival value.
Any department, agency, office, bureau, board, commission,
committee, official or any other organizational unit of the government
of the Town and the employees therein.
The removal, transfer or disposal, in accordance with this
chapter, of records no longer necessary for the conduct of business
by a department.
The application of records management techniques to forms'
design, construction, production, logistics, maintenance and use to
provide improved quality, increased efficiency and reduced costs.
The use of an arrangement of images greatly reduced in size
photographically.
Any book, paper, drawing, plan, picture, sketch, rendering,
photograph, map, form machine-readable information, microform, or
any other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristic,
belonging to the Town, and created or received by any department in
pursuance of law or in connection with the transaction of public business,
and preserved by that department or its legitimate successor, or deemed
appropriate for preservation, as evidence of the duties, organization,
functions, policies, decisions, procedures or operations of such department
or because of the informational value of the data contained therein.
An establishment maintained primarily for the storage, processing,
security and retrieval of records which must be retained according
to records retention schedules but which need not be retained in office
equipment or space.
The planning, controlling, directing, organizing, training,
promoting, advising, and other practices and managerial activities
involved in the efficient creation, maintenance, appraisal, retention,
retrieval, preservation and disposition of records, including, but
not limited to, records centers, records retention surveys and scheduling,
micrographics, filing equipment and filing applications, vital records,
forms management and automation applications.
The Town Clerk for the Town of Southington.
Any system, procedure or technique followed with respect
to records management.
The recovery by the Town, by legal or other action, of records
it considers its property.
The period of time for which a record must be retained according
to an approved retention schedule.
An itemized list of the office and storage retention periods
established for the records of the Town and its departments, prepared
and approved by the Records Management Officer and Records Advisory
Board according to this chapter.
Making information in records available for use.
Those records which are essential to the operation of the
Town government for its administrative, legal or fiscal purposes and
without which the Town government could not operate.
The Records Management Officer shall:
A.
Be qualified by records management or archival education, training
and experience, be knowledgeable of machine-readable records, forms,
control, micrographics capabilities and other aspects of modern records
management programs;
B.
Administer with the assistance of the advisory board the following:
(1)
Establish a survey of all Town Hall records by conducting a comprehensive
inventory with the assistance of all department heads.
(2)
Review and appraise all records inventoried. Establish an area in
the Town Hall for all inactive and archival records.
(3)
Establish a computerized index of all records being stored in the
records center.
(4)
Set up a procedure whereby on an annual basis inactive records may
be transferred or disposed.
The Records Management Officer shall administer a records center
for the management, storage, care, retrieval and disposition of such
records as shall be transferred to it by any department in accordance
with an approved retention schedule or accepted, with prior approval,
by the Records Management Officer.
Records, as defined in this chapter, are the property of the
Town and may not be destroyed, sold, transferred, donated, removed
or otherwise disposed of, except in a manner prescribed by this chapter.
Each department shall cooperate in the record surveys and preparation
of retention schedules for its department. Each department shall make
its records available to the Records Management Officer for purposes
of inventory and appraisal.
Retention schedules shall be approved, in writing, by the department
head in whose department the records are held, the Records Management
Officer and the advisory board.
No record shall be destroyed or otherwise disposed of until
its total retention period has expired, and until approval has been
obtained, in writing, in advance of disposition, from the head of
the department, the Records Management Officer and the public records
administrator of the state.
The head of each department shall designate one employee to
serve as department records coordinator. The records coordinator shall
be the liaison with the Records Management Officer and expedite the
department's participation in the records management program.
