Pennsylvania Municipal Records Retention: The PHMC Schedule System Explained

Introduction

For a county or municipal records manager in Pennsylvania, the most common misconception about records retention is that there is a single number to memorize — ‘keep everything seven years’ or ‘keep it forever.’ There isn’t. Pennsylvania’s local government records law does not set a uniform retention period. It sets up a system: a committee-approved schedule that assigns a specific retention period to each type of record a municipal or county office generates, and a defined legal process a governing body must follow before any of it can be destroyed. This guide goes deep on the mechanics of the municipal and county schedule system specifically — how a schedule gets adopted, how disposition is documented, and where digital imaging fits into the picture.

This guide is a companion to Reynolds’ broader Pennsylvania records retention guide, which covers municipal, hospital, HIPAA, tax, payroll, and workplace-safety schedules at a higher level. This guide focuses specifically on the municipal and county PHMC schedule system.

How the Schedule System Actually Works

These are the genuinely sequential steps a Pennsylvania municipality follows under the Municipal Records Act of January 18, 1968 (P.L. 961, No. 428), as set out in the PHMC Municipal Records Manual’s “Procedures for the Destruction or Transfer of Municipal Records.”

1. Adopt the Municipal Records Schedule by ordinance or resolution. Before a municipality may dispose of anything, its governing body must go on record declaring its intent to follow the Municipal Records Schedule approved by the Local Government Records Committee (LGRC). This is a one-time action — but if PHMC revises or updates the schedule, the municipality must adopt it again by a new ordinance or resolution identifying the updated version, so there is no confusion about which retention periods apply.
2. Identify the record series and its assigned retention period. The schedule is organized by office and record series — Administrative and Legal Records, Financial and Purchasing Records, Police Records, Personnel Records, Public Works/Engineering Records, and more — each with its own retention period and disposition instruction (destroy, or retain permanently). The retention period applies to the record regardless of whether it exists on paper, electronically, or on microfilm.
3. Approve the specific act of disposition by resolution. Reaching the end of a retention period does not authorize automatic destruction. The records custodian identifies the specific records to be destroyed, and the governing body must approve that specific disposition by resolution — every time. Destroying ten boxes of canceled checks this year and another ten boxes two years from now each requires its own resolution.
4. Non-permanent records: no state notification required. For records the schedule does not mark as permanently valuable, steps 1 and 2 above are sufficient — PHMC does not need to be notified before disposal. Microfilm or electronic copies may be substituted for the paper originals of non-permanent records, provided the copies meet the standards approved by the LGRC.
5. Permanent records, undated series, or pre-1910 records: PHMC certification required. Before destroying or transferring original permanent records, records not listed on the schedule, or records created before 1910, the municipality must additionally submit a Municipal Records Disposal Certification Request (in duplicate) to PHMC’s Bureau of the Pennsylvania State Archives and receive written consent. If the permanent records were microfilmed, the request must include a microfilm quality inspection report (Form MCIR-1). If a municipality has adopted the permanent electronic records policy, it must separately submit a PDF/A Notification for Permanent Municipal Records to PHMC.

Municipal Schedules vs. County Schedules — Two Separate Legal Tracks

Pennsylvania runs municipal and county records disposition under two distinct statutes, administered by two distinct committees, even though PHMC’s Bureau of the Pennsylvania State Archives administers both programs.

Municipal records are governed by the Municipal Records Act of January 18, 1968 (P.L. 961, No. 428), which created the Local Government Records Committee (LGRC). It covers third-class cities, boroughs, incorporated towns, townships of the first and second class (including home-rule municipalities), and municipal authorities created by any of them.

County records are governed by the separate County Records Act of August 14, 1963 (P.L. 839, No. 407, 16 P.S. §§13001–13006), which established the County Records Committee. It covers county administrative and fiscal officers in counties of the second through eighth class. County judicial records (Clerk of Courts, Prothonotary, Register of Wills, etc.) fall under a related but distinct authority — Pennsylvania Rule of Judicial Administration No. 507(a) — reflecting the separation between county administrative offices and the county court system.

Both programs produce a comparable document: a retention-and-disposition manual organized by record series, with its own set of appendices covering the enabling act, disposal-log forms, and permanent-records notification procedures. A county records manager working across both administrative and judicial offices needs to track both schedules — they are not interchangeable.

The Resolution Requirement, in Practice

The PHMC Municipal Records Manual is explicit that adoption is ‘basically a one-time requirement’ — but the underlying schedule does get revised, and each revision resets the clock. A governing body that adopted the 2008 Municipal Records Schedule by resolution is not automatically covered by the 2019 amended version; it must pass a new resolution identifying the updated schedule so there is no ambiguity about which retention periods control a given record series. PHMC’s manual includes a model resolution (Appendix B, ‘Example of Resolution Indicating Intent to Follow Municipal Records Schedule’) for this purpose, and a separate model resolution for authorizing destruction of specific records (Appendix C).

The Disposition Process, Record by Record

In practice, disposition is not a single event — it is a recurring administrative act tied to each batch of records reaching the end of its retention period. For non-permanent records, a municipality’s own governing-body resolution is sufficient documentation; PHMC does not need to be looped in. For permanently valuable records (or records outside the schedule, or predating 1910), the municipality must additionally file the Municipal Records Disposal Certification Request with PHMC’s Bureau of the Pennsylvania State Archives and obtain written consent before destruction or transfer — with microfilm quality inspection documentation attached if the records were microfilmed. Municipal officials who dispose of records in compliance with the Act are protected from liability on their official bond for that disposition; the manual notes that officials who follow the Act’s procedures ‘shall not be held liable… for damages or loss… because of the disposition of public records pursuant to the provisions of this act.’

Records subject to audit are held to a higher bar regardless of the schedule: they must be retained for the period listed and must be audited with all findings resolved before destruction. Records involved in any litigation must be retained until the case reaches final disposition, even if the minimum retention period has already passed.

Imaging & Digital Surrogates — Where Scanning Fits the Schedule System

PHMC’s schedule system explicitly contemplates that municipalities will hold records in electronic or microfilm form instead of paper. The Municipal Records Manual states plainly that ‘the fact that information is created and stored electronically or on microfilm rather than on paper has no bearing on its retention status’ — a scanned record is subject to exactly the same retention period as its paper counterpart, no more, no less.

Microfilm or electronic copies may substitute for the paper originals of non-permanent records without any PHMC notification, as long as the copies meet the standards the Local Government Records Committee has approved. For permanently valuable records, substitution is also allowed — but only as part of the formal certification process: a microfilm quality inspection report (MCIR-1) accompanies any request to dispose of microfilmed permanent originals, and a municipality adopting the permanent electronic-records policy must file a PDF/A Notification for Permanent Municipal Records with PHMC.

PHMC’s own imaging guidance (‘Which Scanning Standards Should I Use?,’ PA State Archives Archives Advice No. 3) sets the technical bar for that substitution to hold up: the industry standard for office documents is 300 PPI, rising to 600 PPI (or as high as 2400 PPI) for color, faded, or rare documents; black-and-white documents intended for OCR should generally be scanned at 300 DPI, increasing to as much as 600 DPI where accurate text recognition is required; and any record scheduled for permanent/archival retention must be saved in PDF/A format specifically, because that format is built for long-term readability rather than everyday convenience.

This is precisely the standard Reynolds Business Systems builds its municipal and county document scanning workflows around — PHMC/DARM-aligned resolution, OCR accuracy, and PDF/A output for permanent series — so that a records manager’s digitization project produces files that will actually satisfy a disposal certification request, not just a convenient search index. See Reynolds’ document scanning services and records management program design for how this is implemented for Pennsylvania county and municipal clients.