Livingston City Council approved two resolutions to adopt new policies regarding the destruction of police documents.
City Attorney Andre Greppin said one resolution adopts the MTAS schedule of retention for destruction of police records, while the second resolution applies specifically to accident reports. Police Chief Ray Smith said the resolutions will allow the police department to free up some space.
“Just on the front of the boxes, I counted 78 boxes that is taking up just one big room that… that’s all this is for,” Smith said. “Everybody else, and we started working this way on back there with the mayor and talking with MTAS about getting rid of all this stuff because it’s just taking up useful space.”
According to MTAS, physical case files must be retained for 100 years, and accident reports must be retained for four years. Smith said documents will be scanned into an electronic database before the physical copies are destroyed.
“MTAS advised us that it is another way to store this, and it’s electronically,” Smith said. “Everyone does it, and it works.”
Mayor Lori Elder Burnett said they have met with MTAS and assured that this is a legal way to dispose of physical police documents. Smith said some of the documents date back to 1968. Smith said the police department will have plenty of scanning to do.
“We haven’t done it, so you can just imagine the boxes we have,” Smith said. “We are gonna start that process pretty quickly. As soon as our programming is all ready to go, we will research it, study it out, make sure it meets all criteria, and then we will proceed with it.”
Smith said the freed-up space will likely be used as storage space for other items.
