Maintaining public records for the appropriate length of time is a critical concern for cities and towns. Doing so helps them manage legal risk — even beyond concerns of litigation, the SC Public Records Act establishes penalties for destroying public records. Maintaining records securely and efficiently is also simply critical for a city’s ability to operate.
The SC Department of Archives and History offers general record retention schedules found on its website, www.scdah.sc.gov, which municipalities can use unless they opt to establish specific schedules themselves. In May 2026, SCDAH revised its General Records Retention Schedule for Municipal Records — an extensive policy document that can help municipalities manage their costs of storing information, enhance their data management and ensure legal compliance.
Permanent
Some records, according to the schedule, must be maintained in perpetuity. It calls for these types of records to be transferred to an archival repository for permanent retention. It notes that “permanent paper records that have been microfilmed or digitized must also have a secure back-up copy.”
There are numerous records that cities should retain permanently, including
- Public meeting agendas, agenda packets, minutes
- Ordinances, resolutions, municipal budgets, audit reports
- Map files, annexation files, right-of-way files, subdivision maps or plats
- Deeds of municipality-owned properties and easements
- Governmental and public building project maps and blueprints
- Building permits, certificates of occupancy, encroachment permits
- Cemetery records
“X” years, destroy
The retention schedule names records that are to be destroyed a given number of years after their creation, provided that any administrative, legal and fiscal retention requirements have been met.
For example, the schedule calls for audio, video or digital recordings of public meetings — the type of documents used to prepare minutes — to be retained for two years and then destroyed, so long as the written versions of the minutes have been produced. Contract documents, meanwhile, are to be retained for three years after the expiration of the contract, then destroyed.
The schedule calls for municipalities to periodically complete a Report on Records Destroyed Form to submit to the SCDAH Records Management Division.
Until no longer needed for reference
The records defined this way are to be maintained until the municipality finds that they are no longer of use by municipal officials and staff. They are then destroyed. The schedule applies this to “general housekeeping files,” which could be anything from a list of assigned parking spaces to notices of holidays, a list of animal trapping requests, or maps of construction projects.