All records, including electronic records, have value to the agency creating or receiving them or to other agencies. A few also have enduring historical value and warrant preservation as part of a state’s archives once the agency no longer needs them to conduct ongoing business. Determining the value of records can help determine retention periods that will satisfy agency needs, which in turn can help determine the resources and effort agencies may be willing to expend in maintaining these records when they are in electronic form.

According to the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) handbook on the disposition of records⁶, all records have value to an agency based on four overlapping categories: administrative, fiscal, legal and archival. These categories are discussed below.

All records have administrative value because they are necessary to conduct the agency’s current business. This value can have many facets. Records can have administrative value because they serve to communicate and document decisions. They can also have value because of the information they contain. Such information may have value for the business process they were created for. Sometimes records are specifically created to collect and maintain information.

The duration of operational value may be long or short. Some records, such as program directives, have long-term administrative value. Others have shorter-term administrative value. Many records at operating levels have short-term administrative value because they are correspondence duplicated elsewhere, reports summarized at higher agency levels, or logs serving as temporary controls.

Along with general administrative value, some records may have fiscal value. Records with this value document the agency's financial transactions and obligations. They include budget records, which show how expenditures were planned; voucher or expenditure records, which indicate the purposes for which funds were spent; and accounting records, which classify and summarize agency expenditures. State fiscal control agencies such as an office of management and budget or state auditor or comptroller often prescribe the form and content of many fiscal records. In most instances, only the data on the forms differ from agency to agency.

Besides administrative and fiscal value, records may also have legal value. Records with legal value contain information that may be used to support rights based on the provisions of statute or regulation. Examples of records with legal value include formal decisions and legal opinions; documents containing evidence of actions in particular cases, such as claims papers and legal dockets; and documents involving legal agreements, such as leases, titles and contracts. They also include records relating to criminal investigations, workers' compensation, exposure to hazardous material, and the issuance of licenses and permits. Still other examples include records relating to loans, subsidies and grants; entitlement programs such as food stamps; and survivor benefits in government pension and other programs.

The duration of legal value varies with the matter at hand. Before determining retention periods for records that may have legal value, agencies should seek the advice of their general counsel. Factors to be considered in determining retention periods include applicable statutes of limitation, regulatory limits for claims or prosecution, the potential for fraud, and litigation trends.

Records are an agency’s corporate memory. The majority of records can be disposed of after a period of time because there is no need for the agency to refer back to the activities detailed by those records. However, it is essential that an agency be able to recall some information through staff turnovers and retirements. While it may not be important to keep records of hunting licenses once they have expired, it may be important to preserve information about the limits and privileges covered by the licenses.

Archival records include those records that document the development of high-level policies and programs that relate directly to the agency’s mission, that protect or verify the rights of the agency and citizens it serves, or that capture information about topics that help define the character of the state as a whole. Often, people use the information in archival records differently from the way the records were originally used. For example, census records are created to apportion state’s representation in Congress and federal allocations. Once a census has been superceded, it loses that primary value. However, the census remains valuable for secondary uses, such as genealogy and history.

The vast majority of transactional records described in this document will never be considered archival. However, it’s possible that a few of the records may have archival value. For example, a hunting license used as evidence in a high-profile murder trial may be considered archival. Hence, it is important that system designers include a practical means to preserve records permanently.

Archival records typically run between three and five percent of an agency’s records. Note, though, that many records series will contain no archival records, while a few series may be entirely archival.

In summary, to assess the value of the records being created through a transaction system you will have to consider the records’ administrative, fiscal, legal and archival value. To determine how long records should be maintained you should consult with your records management authority. They will assist you in assigning a retention period for your records consistent with the general records disposition schedule in effect for your state. Generally, records with administrative value can be disposed before records with fiscal and legal value, records with fiscal value can be disposed before those with legal value, and records that have historical value are preserved the longest.