How long do we keep meeting recordings in Michigan? One year, as of August 2026.
The state revised this rule on August 18, 2026. Under the current General Schedule #35, the audio or video recording of a meeting is retained for 1 year after the meeting is held. The minutes, not the recording, remain the permanent record. Here are the rules as printed, old and new.
Updated: the rule changed on August 18, 2026
When this article was first published, the answer was one of the shortest clocks in the schedules: minutes approved, plus one day. On August 18, 2026 the state revised General Schedule #35, and the current rule is a flat year from the meeting date:
DTMB General Schedule #35 (Administrative Records), item 35.112; approved 8/18/2026. Applies to all Michigan public bodies. The item cites MCL 15.269a(2).
The citation moved too. The old item pointed at MCL 15.269, the minutes section of the Open Meetings Act. The revised item cites MCL 15.269a(2), a newer OMA provision (added by 2022 PA 63) that requires recordings of certain state-level board meetings to be kept at least 1 year in a format that can be reproduced for FOIA. That statutory mandate covers state licensing boards, commission panels, and rule-making boards; the revised schedule applies the same 1-year period to local government meeting recordings as a retention rule.
The logic of the schedules has not changed: Michigan law treats the approved minutes as the official, permanent record of the meeting (see how long minutes are kept: forever). What changed is how long the recording, the raw material, must survive alongside them.
One wrinkle: the township clerk schedule still prints the old rule
The township clerk schedule has its own item for meeting recordings, and it has not been revised since 2008:
DTMB General Schedule #25 (Township Clerks), item 25.201; approved 6/17/2008.
The two schedules now disagree. A retention schedule is an authorization to dispose, not a command to destroy, so the safe practice when two approved schedules cover the same record is to satisfy both: keep the recording 1 year after the meeting, the longer of the two periods. That is also the period the revised GS #35 grounds in the statute. Confirm the approach with your municipal attorney, and watch for a future revision of GS #25 to bring the clerk schedule in line.
May destroy is not must destroy
Retention periods are minimums. Nothing stops a public body from keeping its recordings for years, publishing them on its website, or maintaining a YouTube channel going back a decade; plenty do, and residents appreciate it. The schedule means something narrower: one year after the meeting, the recording is eligible for disposal, and destroying it then is routine, defensible records management rather than a violation.
The standard holds still override the schedule: a recording that is responsive to a pending FOIA request, litigation, or an investigation must be kept until the matter concludes, whatever the schedule says. And a recording kept under the 1-year rule remains a public record while it exists, so it should stay in a format that can be reproduced if requested.
Dekree takes the recording you already make, transcribes it, drafts the minutes for your review, and links chapters of the video to agenda items for residents. The recording, the transcript, and the approved minutes each carry their own retention rule from the official schedule, so what must be permanent is, and what may be released can be.
Verify it yourself
Both quotes link to the exact page of the official schedule on michigan.gov, and every series is searchable in our free database of all 2,150 Michigan retention rules. Confirm specifics with your municipal attorney before disposing of anything.
Common questions
How long does a Michigan public body have to keep meeting recordings?
One year after the meeting is held, under the current rule. General Schedule #35 item 35.112 (Meeting Records, Audio and Video Recordings), revised and approved 8/18/2026, reads: RETAIN UNTIL: Meeting is held PLUS: 1 year THEN: Destroy, and cites MCL 15.269a(2). Before this revision, the 6/6/2023 edition allowed disposal one day after the minutes were approved. The approved minutes remain the permanent official record; the recording may be disposed of once the year has run.
What changed in the August 2026 revision?
The 6/6/2023 edition of GS #35 allowed a meeting recording to be destroyed one day after the minutes were approved, citing MCL 15.269. The 8/18/2026 edition replaces that with a flat 1-year clock that runs from the meeting date, citing MCL 15.269a(2), the Open Meetings Act provision (added by 2022 PA 63) that sets a 1-year retention floor for recordings of certain state-level board meetings. The schedule now applies that same 1-year period to local government meeting recordings.
The township clerk schedule still says one day. Which rule applies?
General Schedule #25 (Township Clerks) item 25.201, approved 6/17/2008 and not revised since, still prints RETAIN UNTIL: Meeting minutes are approved PLUS: 1 day. It now conflicts with the revised GS #35 item 35.112. Retention schedules authorize disposal; when two approved schedules cover the same record, the safe practice is to satisfy both, which here means keeping the recording 1 year after the meeting. Confirm the approach with your municipal attorney.
If someone files a FOIA request for a recording, do we have to keep it?
If the recording still exists when a request that covers it arrives, it must be preserved until the request concludes; a pending FOIA request suspends disposal. If it was lawfully destroyed under the schedule before the request came in, "no records exist" is a complete and defensible response.
This article is educational information for Michigan public bodies, current as of the publication date. It is not legal advice, and statutes and court decisions change. Confirm specifics with your municipal attorney. Statute text: legislature.mi.gov.
The Michigan Clerk’s Retention Cheat Sheet
The most-asked retention rules for clerks (minutes, ordinances, poll books, FOIA files, invoices, permits, recordings) in one printable quick reference, quoted as the schedules print them and current to the August 2026 GS #35 revision. Pin it by your desk.