Public dollars, private e-mails: Common practices put records at risk

Two-thirds of elected officials in Tompkins County and surrounding municipalities use private e-mail accounts to conduct the public's business, an Ithaca Journal review of 330 elected positions in Upstate New York shows.

The use of private e-mail accounts by public officials puts public records, documents and correspondence at risk of being accidentally destroyed, deleted or lost when maintained only on personal computers or the servers of companies such as Yahoo, AOL and Google.

When public officials use publicly provided, maintained and backed-up e-mail accounts, valuable records are more likely to be archived and stored in accordance with New York state record-retention law. It is necessary to archive and maintain e-mail documents because the records could be subpoenaed or subject to a Freedom of Information Law request. Of 330 elected positions from more than 30 local government bodies surveyed in Upstate New York, 220 use personal e-mail accounts to perform their duties.

Of the 162 elected positions reviewed in Tompkins County and school districts served by the Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services, only 34 officials, or 21 percent, use e-mail that is publicly owned and maintained by tax dollars.

Public business being conducted with private e-mail accounts is not limited to small counties, cities and schools boards.

More than half of the 29 legislators representing Monroe County, New York's sixth largest county with more than 730,000 citizens, use their private e-mails for legislative duties. And in Onondaga County, home to the City of Syracuse, all 19 legislators use private e-mails.

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Source: The Ithica Journal
By: Topher Sanders