BILL REQ. #: H-0867.1
State of Washington | 63rd Legislature | 2013 Regular Session |
Read first time 01/24/13. Referred to Committee on Government Operations & Elections.
AN ACT Relating to the state archivist; and amending RCW 40.14.020.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
Sec. 1 RCW 40.14.020 and 2011 1st sp.s. c 43 s 727 are each
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 must be a person who is
qualified by training and experience to administer the office. The
archivist must have a master's degree in history, government, political
science, or business administration; or be a certified archivist. The
archivist must have five years' experience as an archivist. 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 office of the chief information officer 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;
(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;
(11) To solicit, accept, and expend donations as provided in RCW
43.07.037 for the purpose of the archive program. These purposes
include, but are not limited to, acquisition, accession,
interpretation, and display of archival materials. Donations that do
not meet the criteria of the archive program may not be accepted;
(12) To provide consultant services for archival programs and to
provide training for state and local records coordinators;
(13) To supervise the operation of regional branches and digital
archives;
(14) To demand, from any person, organization, or entity that has
illegal possession of original state or local government records,
records, which shall be delivered to the archives;
(15) To serve as a liaison to legislative, judicial, and executive
branches and to consult on public records to local and state
government;
(16) To make recommendations for improvements to laws, rules,
policies, and procedures on behalf of the division of archives and
records management and state and local government agencies and
officials.