How long do we keep meeting minutes in Indiana? Forever.
Meeting minutes are permanent records for every Indiana county and local agency, board, and commission. Here is the exact retention rule, quoted from the official OCPR-approved schedule, plus the recording rule that trips people up and where to verify both at the source.
- The rule
- GEN 10-01 (Minutes), County/Local General Retention Schedule: PERMANENT and CRITICAL
- What it covers
- Official minutes of any county/local agency, board, or commission, including agendas and supporting documents presented at the meeting
- The recording
- GEN 10-02: destroy after the relevant minutes are transcribed and approved. The minutes are the permanent record, not the recording
- The livestream wrinkle
- Archived meeting transmissions must stay available at least 90 days (IC 5-14-1.5-2.9(f)), even if the minutes are already approved
- Who approved it
- The Oversight Committee on Public Records (OCPR), 11/12/2025. Verify in the official schedule PDF at in.gov/iara
The short answer: minutes are permanent, everywhere in Indiana
If you keep one retention rule in your head, make it this one: meeting minutes are permanent records. Not three years, not until the vault fills up. Permanent. Indiana makes this unusually easy to confirm, because one committee, the Oversight Committee on Public Records, approves one General schedule that applies to every county and local unit in the state. Here is the series, as printed:
County/Local General Retention Schedule, record series GEN 10-01; approved by OCPR 11/12/2025. Applies to every Indiana county and local unit.
The scope is broad by design. The series covers official minutes of any county or local agency, board, or commission, or of any division, and it includes the agendas and other supporting documents presented at the meeting. County commissioners, town councils, township boards, plan commissions, library boards: same series, same answer. The series itself cites IC 5-15-5.1-5(a)(9) as part of its statutory basis, and the CRITICAL designation flags it as a record the agency cannot afford to lose.
The recording is not the permanent record
Right next to GEN 10-01 sits the rule people confuse with it. If your board records its meetings to help produce the minutes, the recording has a much shorter life:
County/Local General Retention Schedule, record series GEN 10-02; approved by OCPR 11/12/2025.
The logic is the same as most states use: the approved minutes are the official, permanent record of what the body decided, and the recording is working material that served its purpose once the minutes are approved.
But Indiana has a wrinkle the schedule does not mention. Since July 1, 2025, Indiana’s primary local governing bodies (county, city, town, and township executives, legislative and fiscal bodies, plus elected school boards) must live stream their meetings and keep the archived transmission (or, for bodies without internet capability, a recording) available for public inspection and copying or downloading for at least 90 days after the meeting (IC 5-14-1.5-2.9(f)). Only after those 90 days may the agency destroy it. So a recording that is doing double duty as your livestream archive has to satisfy both rules: the practical guidance is to keep it at least 90 days even when the minutes were approved in week three. The full streaming regime is in our guide to the livestream law.
Memoranda, minutes, and what the Open Door Law actually requires
Indiana meeting law has a quirk worth naming here: as a matter of the Open Door Law, formal minutes are optional. What every governing body must keep as the meeting progresses are memoranda: the date, time, and place, who was present, the general substance of matters proposed, discussed, or decided, and a record of roll-call votes (IC 5-14-1.5-4(b)). Section 4(c) then says "the minutes, if any" are open to public inspection. A body that never adopts formal minutes is not violating the Open Door Law.
Retention law does not care about that distinction. GEN 10-01 makes the official minutes record of any local agency, board, or commission permanent, so whatever your body keeps as its official record of its meetings, formal minutes or the mandatory memoranda standing in for them, belongs in the permanent series. What the memoranda must contain, and how they differ from minutes, is covered in our memoranda checklist.
Dekree runs this workflow for Michigan local governments today: minutes drafted from the agenda, approved, and filed against the permanent retention series automatically. We are bringing the platform to Indiana next. If you want it in your office, email contact@dekree.ai with the subject line Indiana and we will add your office to the Indiana rollout list.
Verify it yourself
Both quotes above come from the official County/Local General Retention Schedule, which lives with the other 15 county and local schedules on IARA’s County/Local Retention Schedules page at in.gov/iara. The GEN schedule PDF, with the OCPR approval date in the header, is at in.gov/iara/files/county_general.pdf. Retention periods authorize disposal; they do not require it, and your agency attorney has the final word on holds for audits, litigation, or pending records requests.
One workflow reminder for the records you can destroy, like recordings whose minutes are approved and past the 90-day mark: destruction under an approved schedule happens first, and then you file State Form 44905, the Notice of Destruction, with your county commission of public records. The full destruction workflow, including what changes for unscheduled records, is in our guide to Indiana retention schedules.
Common questions
How long does an Indiana local government have to keep its meeting minutes?
Permanently. Record series GEN 10-01 (Minutes) on the County/Local General Retention Schedule, approved by the Oversight Committee on Public Records on 11/12/2025, lists minutes as PERMANENT and CRITICAL. The series covers official minutes of any county or local agency, board, or commission, including agendas and other supporting documents presented at the meeting. Minutes are never eligible for destruction.
Can we destroy the recording once the minutes are approved?
Check both rules first. GEN 10-02 says meeting recordings may be destroyed after the relevant minutes are transcribed and approved. But if that recording is also the archived copy of your live-streamed meeting, IC 5-14-1.5-2.9(f) separately requires it to stay available for public inspection and copying or downloading for at least 90 days after the meeting. The safe practice: destroy a recording only after the minutes are approved AND at least 90 days have passed since the meeting.
Our board keeps memoranda instead of formal minutes. What is permanent?
Under the Open Door Law, memoranda are the mandatory record (date, time, place, attendance, general substance of matters, roll-call votes per IC 5-14-1.5-4(b)) and minutes are optional (section 4(c) says "the minutes, if any"). But GEN 10-01 makes the official minutes record of any local agency, board, or commission permanent, so whatever your body keeps as its official record of the meeting should be treated as the permanent series. Do not read "minutes are optional" as "the meeting record is disposable."
Does the permanent rule apply to our plan commission or library board?
Yes. The County/Local General Retention Schedule applies to every local unit in Indiana (counties, cities, towns, townships, schools, libraries), and GEN 10-01 covers the minutes of any county or local agency, board, or commission, including divisions. One statewide schedule, one answer.
This article is educational information for Indiana public agencies, current as of the publication date. It is not legal advice, and statutes and court decisions change. Confirm specifics with your agency attorney. Statute text: iga.in.gov.