Payroll/Salaries

Accounts

Vouchers

Travel

committee budget and the acquisition, use, and accounting of funds. The Disbursing Office publishes all vouchers in the semiannual report of the Secretary. Backup materials are kept by Disbursing, but copies should be retained in the committee for proof of expenditures until the vouchers themselves are audited and destroyed. The vouchers are destroyed when they are twelve years old.

Records documenting payroll ex- Temporary penditures for each fiscal year including Disbursing Office monthly reports of annual salaries, breakdown of allowance and expenditures for current month and projections for the next two months

Records documenting by calendar Temporary year expenditures for equipment, books, photo supplies, telephone, etc., including ledgers, journals, and an office budget

Vouchers and accompanying docu- Temporary mentation such as invoices, bills, statements, receipts, or other evidence of expense incurred

Destroy when no longer of administrative use, or when two Congresses old.

Retain current and previous three calendar years in office. Destroy twelve years after the calendar year in which the account was paid.

Retain current and previous three calendar years in office. Destroy twelve years after the calendar year in which the account was paid.

At the close of each Congress, or when no longer needed for administrative purposes, transfer to the Archives.

CHAPTER IV:

ELECTRONIC RECORDS

Electronic records constitute a significant, if not major, portion of the documentation created and maintained in committee offices. Staff maintain briefing memos, correspondence, e-mail communications with attachments, drafts of legislation, reports, speeches, analyses, and spreadsheets on their systems. They communicate with members, witnesses and interested parties, track legislation, perform research, and maintain databases. In every committee office, a wide range of electronic information now resides on-line and on backup tapes.

Electronic documents must be "managed" if they are to be useful to staff. They must be incorporated into the archival records of the committee. Committee servers cannot be deleted and wiped clean before committee documents have been archived. Effective management involves all staff who use the systems. This means that staff need to be briefed about what documents to save and how to label and store them on both H and S drives and e-mail. They should be encouraged to give documents titles that are understandable, with certain basic information (such as date, subject, author, addressee, type of document, or bill number) that facilitates retrieval. Documents pertaining to a particular bill, issue, or nominee should be grouped together into folders. The goal is to document the legislative history of a particular bill, issue, or nomination review by grouping relevant documents together.

Access to information residing on computers is dependent on the availability of particular hardware or software. Offices should ensure that permanently valuable information is either printed and filed or that it is prepared for transfer to the Archives. Current information should be "migrated" to new systems as the old equipment and formats are superseded. Offices preparing archival transfer media (usually CDROMs) also should identify the format of the files (e.g., PDF or HTML; see exhibit 4-1, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee electronic archiving project). While some of the technical work is automatically accomplished during Senate-wide upgrades, individual offices remain responsible for determining which information needs to be converted to the new system, and which needs to be archived. This chapter covers the management and disposition of electronic records.

MANAGING LOCAL AREA NETWORKS

Committees utilize microcomputers and Local Area Networks (LANs) that allow offices to take advantage of industry-standard software packages. Senate LANS support word processing, electronic mail, database management, spreadsheet, calendar, and data communications functions. Staff use a variety of software products to prepare legislation, reports, speeches, memoranda, correspondence, graphic displays, charts, and office budgets.

Systems management is the responsibility of each committee. As systems fill up and response time slows, systems managers will have to transfer noncurrent permanent information to an archival transfer medium (discussed in the section, "Selecting An Archival Transfer Medium"). When system upgrades and changes occur, some information will be transferred to the new system, and some will be sent to the National Archives for preservation. (See exhibit 41, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee electronic archiving project.)

Traditionally, the chief clerk and assistant clerks are responsible for establishing recordkeeping procedures throughout the committee (majority, minority, subcommittees). To archive electronic records, the systems administrator and committee clerks and/ or archivist (if there is one) must be closely involved. Office management staff should guide staff in the following:

• Naming and grouping documents into folders on H drives

Creating archive folders and grouping substantive e-mail communications into them

Segregating and deleting nonpermanent files of departing staff

• Archiving the electronic documents of staff who depart

• Ensuring the security of information

• Transferring the permanent documents to the Archives

To facilitate this process, a guidance memo can be prepared. It should be circulated to all new staff and periodically as a reminder to all staff.