Leadership Letter
November 2022
ASK COUNSELOR TARA
ASCE’s General Counsel Tara Hoke responds to legal questions posed by Sections and Branches here each month. Send Tara an email with your question.
How important is our local ASCE group’s records retention policy?
While it’s safe to say that few people volunteer as ASCE leaders for the joy of handling paperwork, having and enforcing a consistent record retention procedure is an important part of a leader’s job. It can also be critical to the health and success of a group in the event of a tax audit, contract or billing dispute, or other question related to past activities.
A good record retention policy serves two purposes:
First, it describes what types of document should be kept as a “record” (versus non-records, such as thank-you notes, personal correspondence, or other exchanges that are not material to the group’s business activities) and establishes an appropriate length of time for retaining those records.
Second, it sets a framework for destruction of records after their designated retention period, and as such relieving the organization from the trouble and cost of retaining unneeded or obsolete records.
For those groups that have not (or do not know if they have) adopted a record retention policy, ASCE’s Section & Branch Operation Handbook includes a model record retention policy, which can be used as a starting point for developing your own policy. You can find this handbook at: https://regions.asce.org/leader-training-committee/resources.