AN ACT
Relating to the preservation of public electronic records; reenacting and
amending RCW 40.14.020; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE
OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
Sec.
1. RCW
40.14.020 and 1991 c 237 s 4 and 1991 c 184 s 1 are each reenacted and amended
to read as follows:
All
public records shall be and remain the property of the state of Washington.
They shall be delivered by outgoing officials and employees to their successors
and shall be preserved, stored, transferred, destroyed or disposed of, and
otherwise managed, only in accordance with the provisions of this chapter. In
order to insure the proper management and safeguarding of public records, the
division of archives and records management is established in the office of the
secretary of state. The state archivist, who shall administer the division and
have reasonable access to all public records, wherever kept, for purposes of
information, surveying, or cataloguing, shall undertake the following
functions, duties, and responsibilities:
(1) To
manage the archives of the state of Washington;
(2) To
centralize the archives of the state of Washington, to make them available for
reference and scholarship, and to insure their proper preservation;
(3) To
inspect, inventory, catalog, and arrange retention and transfer schedules on
all record files of all state departments and other agencies of state
government;
(4) To
insure the maintenance and security of all state public records and to
establish safeguards against unauthorized removal or destruction;
(5) To
establish and operate such state record centers as may from time to time be
authorized by appropriation, for the purpose of preserving, servicing,
screening and protecting all state public records which must be preserved
temporarily or permanently, but which need not be retained in office space and
equipment;
(6) To
adopt rules under chapter 34.05 RCW:
(a)
Setting standards for the durability and permanence of public records
maintained by state and local agencies;
(b)
Governing procedures for the creation, maintenance, transmission, cataloging,
indexing, storage, or reproduction of photographic, optical, electronic, or
other images of public documents or records in a manner consistent with current
standards, policies, and procedures of the department of information services
for the acquisition of information technology;
(c)
Governing the accuracy and durability of, and facilitating access to,
photographic, optical, electronic, or other images used as public records; or
(d) To
carry out any other provision of this chapter;
(7) To
gather and disseminate to interested agencies information on all phases of
records management and current practices, methods, procedures, techniques, and
devices for efficient and economical management and preservation of records;
(8) To
operate a central microfilming bureau which will microfilm, at cost, records
approved for filming by the head of the office of origin and the archivist; to
approve microfilming projects undertaken by state departments and all other
agencies of state government; and to maintain proper standards for this work;
((and))
(9) To
maintain necessary facilities for the review of records approved for
destruction and for their economical disposition by sale or burning; directly
to supervise such destruction of public records as shall be authorized by the
terms of this chapter;
(10)
To assist and train state and local agencies in the proper methods of creating,
maintaining, cataloging, indexing, transmitting, storing, and reproducing
photographic, optical, electronic, or other images used as public records.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. If
specific funding for the purposes of this act, referencing this act by bill
number, is not provided by June 30, 1995, in the omnibus appropriations act,
this act shall be null and void.
