CALIFORNIA - Government Agency Destroys Records?

"State seismic regulators destroy key electronic records" by Corey G. Johnson, California Watch 12/23/2011

Excerpt

he office that regulates California school construction routinely destroyed key documents that might have shed light on its lax enforcement of earthquake safety standards – despite a binding agreement it has with the State Archives to preserve public records.

For the past five years, the Division of the State Architect has erased the entire computer hard drives and copies of records saved on computer servers within a month of an employee's departure. Those records included all e-mail correspondence, directives, meeting notes and minutes, policy documents, and appointment calendars.

Such records help explain how enforcement decisions were developed and carried out. The retention agreement between the two offices shows that state regulators were not allowed to destroy correspondence and meeting minutes from its top managers without clearance from the State Archives. The records should have been saved for at least four years and then transferred to the State Archives, according to the retention documents.

The destroyed documents take on greater significance now that the state architect's office has come under scrutiny for its lax enforcement and questionable application of seismic safety standards. In reporting about the state's system of oversight, California Watch was able to obtain some of these documents through other sources – before records were destroyed. But there is no way to know how many records have been forever lost.

Eric Lamoureux, spokesman for the Department of General Services, which oversees the state architect's office, said the office views all e-mails not saved in individual school project files or any shared internal databases as "informal communications" that can be destroyed. Lamoureux said the department didn't notify the State Archives because there isn't a requirement to do so for "transitory" records.

The background issue, is this policy an attempt at coverup or bureaucratic laxity?

I find it hard to believe that an government entity does NOT know that ALL documents the entity has may be subject of legal proceedings and should be kept. Which brings up the question of a California State policy mandating that ALL state agencies keep their records, at the very least on computer backups.