HB4888 104TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

LRB104 18197 RTM 31636 b

104TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
State of Illinois
2025 and 2026
HB4888

Introduced , by Rep. Janet Yang Rohr

SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:

50 ILCS 205/3	from Ch. 116, par. 43.103
50 ILCS 205/7	from Ch. 116, par. 43.107
50 ILCS 205/10	from Ch. 116, par. 43.110

Amends the Local Records Act. Provides that, except as otherwise provided by law, no public record shall be disposed of by any officer or agency unless in compliance with an application for authority to dispose of local records (rather than unless the written approval of the appropriate Local Records Commission is first obtained). Defines "application for authority to dispose of local records".

A BILL FOR

AN ACT concerning local government.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:

Section 5. The Local Records Act is amended by changing Sections 3, 7, and 10 as follows:

(50 ILCS 205/3) (from Ch. 116, par. 43.103)

Sec. 3. Except where the context indicates otherwise, the terms used in this Act are defined as follows:

"Agency" means any court, and all parts, boards, departments, bureaus and commissions of any county, municipal corporation or political subdivision.

"Application for authority to dispose of local records" means an Agency-specific document that is created and approved by a commission and that provides a listing of all public records held by the Agency and their required retention timeframes.

"Archivist" means the Secretary of State.

"Born-digital electronic material" means electronic material created in digital form rather than converted from print or analog form to digital form.

"Commission" means a Local Records Commission.

"Court" means a court, other than the Supreme Court.

"Digitized electronic material" means electronic material converted from print or analog form to digital form.

"Junk mail" means (i) any unsolicited commercial mail sent to a public body and not responded to by an official, employee, or agent of the public body or (ii) any unsolicited commercial electronic communication sent to a public body and not responded to by an official, employee, or agent of the public body.

"Officer" means any elected or appointed official of a court, county, municipal corporation or political subdivision.

"Public record" means any book, paper, map, photograph, born-digital electronic material, digitized electronic material, electronic material with a combination of digitized and born-digital material, or other official documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made, produced, executed or received by any agency or officer pursuant to law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by such agency or officer, or any successor thereof, as evidence of the organization, function, policies, decisions, procedures, or other activities thereof, or because of the informational data contained therein. Library and museum material made or acquired and preserved solely for reference or exhibition purposes, extra copies of documents preserved only for convenience of reference, stocks of publications and of processed documents, and junk mail are not included within the definition of public record. Paper copies of registration records, as defined in Section 1 of the Library Records Confidentiality Act (75 ILCS 70/1), shall not be considered public records once the information contained in the paper registration records is transferred into a secure electronic format and checked for accuracy.

(Source: P.A. 104-438, eff. 1-1-26.)

(50 ILCS 205/7) (from Ch. 116, par. 43.107)

Sec. 7. Disposition rules. Except as otherwise provided by law, no public record shall be disposed of by any officer or agency unless in compliance with an application for authority to dispose of local records the written approval of the appropriate Local Records Commission is first obtained.

The Commission shall issue regulations which shall be binding on all such officers. Such regulations shall establish procedures for notifying compiling and submitting to the Commission lists and schedules of public records disposed of in compliance with the application for authority to dispose of local records proposed for disposal; procedures for the physical destruction or other disposition of such public records; procedures for the management and preservation of electronically generated and maintained records; and standards for the reproduction of such public records by photography, microphotographic processes, or digitized electronic format. Such standards shall relate to the quality of the film to be used, preparation of the public records for filming or electronic conversion, proper identification matter on such records so that an individual document or series of documents can be located on the film or digitized electronic form with reasonable facility, and that the copies contain all significant record detail, to the end that the copies will be adequate. Any public record may be reproduced in a microfilm or digitized electronic format. The agency may dispose of the original of any reproduced record providing: (i) the reproduction process forms a durable medium that accurately and legibly reproduces the original record in all details, that does not permit additions, deletions, or changes to the original document images, and, if electronic, that are retained in a trustworthy manner so that the records, and the information contained in the records, are accessible and usable for subsequent reference at all times while the information must be retained, (ii) the reproduction is retained for the prescribed retention period, and (iii) the Commission is notified when the original record is disposed of and also when the reproduced record is disposed of.

Such regulations shall also provide that the State archivist may retain any records which the Commission has authorized to be destroyed, where they have a historical value, and that the State archivist may deposit them in the State Archives, State Historical Library, or a university library, or with a historical society, museum, or library.

(Source: P.A. 99-147, eff. 1-1-16.)

(50 ILCS 205/10) (from Ch. 116, par. 43.110)

Sec. 10. The head of each agency shall submit to the appropriate Commission, in accordance with the regulations of the Commission, lists or schedules of public records in his custody that are not needed in the transaction of current business and that do not have sufficient administrative, legal or fiscal value to warrant their further preservation. The head of each agency shall also submit lists or schedules proposing the length of time each records series warrants retention for administrative, legal or fiscal purposes after it has been received by the agency. The Commission shall determine what public records have no administrative, legal, research or historical value and should be destroyed or otherwise disposed of and shall authorize destruction or other disposal thereof. No public record shall be destroyed or otherwise disposed of in a manner contrary to law, and no public record shall be destroyed or otherwise disposed of by any Local Records Commission if not in compliance with the application for authority to dispose of local records on its own initiative, nor contrary to law. This Section shall not apply to court records as governed by Section 4 of this Act.

(Source: P.A. 85-1278.)