Overview

Description: Describes how Department of Human Services will ensure that records are securely stored and conveniently accessible for the duration of the retention period mandated by the office of the Secretary of State. The Imaging and Records Management Services (IRMS) office will maintain a structured archiving procedure for storing sensitive documents in a secure warehouse environment.

Records will be safely stored in an organized, low maintenance facility that allows for efficient document retrieval, minimum record security and orderly document retention and destruction supervision.

Purpose/Rationale: Archived records contain a documented history of the government’s activities and decisions. They provide evidence of fiscal transactions and help define and protect the legal rights and obligations of citizens and the agency.

Applicability: It is the responsibility of all DHS programs to follow federal and state archiving regulations for their records. This archiving policy is for the storage of DHS archived records stored at the archiving warehouse facility.

Failure to Comply:  Failure to comply with the policy may result in disciplinary action.  Failure to comply may also result in misplacing records, the inability to retrieve documents in a timely manner, or the destruction of records before their approved retention schedule.  Failure to adequately store and retrieve DHS archived records could hinder the ability to substantiate benefits provided and actions taken with clients and employees, potentially contributing to unsafe conditions for children and adults.  DHS could be encumbered with costly legal actions if records are not appropriately made available as requested.

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Policy

1. It is the Department’s responsibility to ensure the preservation of archived information essential to the needs of the agency and to ensure punctual destruction of physical documents.
2. It is the responsibility of the Imaging and Records Management Services (IRMS) office to ensure that records are appropriately maintained by supervising activities related to the physical storage of records and documents for the Department of Human Services.
3. If records are stored in a location other than that of DHS Archive warehouse, the DHS program has a responsibility to ensure that all information held by the department is appropriately secure. It is their responsibility to store these records in a secure location, make sure that they are retrievable throughout the defined retention schedule, and appropriately destroy the records at the end of the retention period.

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Procedure(s)

• DHS-050-005-01, Sending Records for Archival Storage
• DHS-050-005-02, Requesting Records from Archival Storage
• DHS-050-005-03, Destruction of Physical Records from Archival Storage

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Form(s)

• DHS 6624, Archive Inventory Register
• DHS 6625, Archive Storage Label
• DHS 6628, Archive Documents Request

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Reference(s)

• Oregon Blue Book – Records Retention Schedule for DHS
• Secretary of State, Archives Division, Oregon Administrative Rules
• Legislative Counsel Committee of the Oregon Legislative Assembly- Destruction of Physical Records

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Definition(s)

Records Management - The systematic control of all recorded information, including planning, creation, use and storage, through disposition. 

Requestor – The Branch Manager or their assigned designate who is authorized to be the Legal DHS Agent.

Retention Schedule - A General Schedule published by the State Archivist in the OAR in which certain common public records are described or listed by title and a minimum retention period is established for each; or a Special Schedule approved by the State Archivist for the public records of a specific agency.

Retention Period - The minimum length of time a public record must be retained as authorized by an applicable General or Special Schedule.

• Also see Common Terms for department-wide support services policies

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Contact

• Name: Archive Specialist; Phone: 503-378-4501; Email: dhs.archiving-services@state.or.us
• Name: Deputy Administrator; Phone: 503-378-3528; Email: dhs.archiving-services@state.or.us

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Policy History

• Version 1.0:
  • 06/28/2011 - Administrative Corrections to address office name change from Office of Communications Resources (OCR) to Imaging and Records Management Services (IRMS).
  • 04/01/2010 - Administrative Corrections to address contact information and office name change from Office of Document Management (ODM) to Office of Communications Resources (OCR).
  • 12/6/2006 - Initial Release

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If you have comments about this site, send email to dhs.policyinfo@state.or.us.

Oregon Department of Human Services
500 Summer St. NE E25, Salem, OR 97301-1098
Phone: (503) 945-5944
Fax: (503) 378-2897
TTY: (503) 947-5330