How long do we keep meeting recordings in Wisconsin? 90 days after approval and publication.
Wis. Stat. 19.21(7) lets a city, village, town, or school district destroy a meeting recording no sooner than 90 days after the minutes are approved and published, if the recording was made to prepare the minutes. That one sentence carries three conditions and one hard freeze. Here is the rule as printed, and what each clause means in practice.
- The rule
- Wis. Stat. 19.21(7): a recording made to prepare minutes may be destroyed no sooner than 90 days after the minutes have been approved and published
- Who it names
- Recordings of meetings of a city, village, town, or school district. Counties are not named; a county should confirm its own schedule or ordinance treatment
- The freeze
- Wis. Stat. 19.35(5): no destruction after a records request is received until it is granted, or at least 60 days after denial (90 if the requester is incarcerated); litigation holds after mandamus notice
- The record that stays
- The minutes. The Open Meetings Law (19.88(3)) requires motions and roll call votes recorded and preserved; the recording is the drafting aid, not the official record
The short answer: 90 days after the minutes are approved and published
Wisconsin answers this question in a single sentence of the records statute, and it is worth reading exactly as printed:
Wis. Stat. s. 19.21(7), from the current statute text at docs.legis.wisconsin.gov.
So the working rule for a Wisconsin clerk is: keep the recording at least 90 days past the approval and publication of the minutes. After that, it is eligible for disposal. “May be destroyed no sooner than” is a floor, not an order; nothing stops your body from keeping recordings longer or posting them for residents as a service. But once the floor is passed and no hold applies, destroying the recording is routine records management, not a violation.
Three conditions inside one sentence
That sentence is doing more work than it looks like, and each clause matters.
First, the clock starts at approval and publication, not at the meeting. The 90 days run from the point at which the minutes “have been approved and published.” A recording must survive at least until the minutes clear the next meeting, and if publication comes after approval, read the statute conservatively and count from when both have happened.
Second, the statute names four kinds of units: city, village, town, and school district. Counties are not in the list. A county board should not assume the 90-day rule covers its recordings; the safe course is to confirm how the recording is treated under the county’s own records schedule or ordinance, and to ask corporation counsel before disposing of anything the statute does not plainly release.
Third, the rule applies “if the purpose of the recording was to make minutes of the meeting.” That is the whole theory of the provision: the recording is raw material for the minutes, and once the minutes are approved and published, the raw material has served its purpose. A recording kept for some other purpose is not riding this clock. It carries whatever retention its content and your schedule require, so decide what each recording is for before you treat it as disposable.
Never destroy a recording someone has asked for
One rule overrides the 90-day floor completely. Under Wis. Stat. 19.35(5), no authority may destroy any record after receiving a request for it until the request is granted, or until at least 60 days after the request is denied. If the requester is a committed or incarcerated person, the wait after denial is at least 90 days. And if the authority receives written notice that a mandamus action under 19.37 has been commenced over the record, it cannot be destroyed until the court issues its order and the deadline for appeal has passed, or, if the order is appealed, until the appellate court rules.
In practice: before any recording goes in the bin, check it against your open records requests. A recording that is responsive to a pending request is frozen, however long ago the minutes were approved. Destroying it during that window is the kind of mistake that turns a routine disposal into a records case.
The minutes are the record. The recording is the drafting aid.
The 90-day rule makes sense once you see what Wisconsin law actually requires a body to preserve. The Open Meetings Law never mandates a recording; what 19.88(3) requires is that the motions and roll call votes of each meeting be recorded, preserved and open to public inspection. The minutes are where that obligation lives, and the recording exists to help the clerk produce them. What Wisconsin minutes must contain, and which clerk statutes add to the OML baseline, is covered in our guide to Wisconsin meeting minutes requirements.
Two points of contrast are useful for perspective. Michigan runs the same logic on a much shorter clock: under the state retention schedules, a meeting recording may be destroyed one day after the minutes are approved (see the Michigan recording rule). Wisconsin’s 90 days is the generous version of the same idea. And in states that mandate livestreaming of meetings, the archived stream can carry its own separate retention requirement; that is a distinct question from the drafting-aid rule discussed here, and worth checking whenever a recording is doing double duty as a public archive.
Dekree runs this workflow for Michigan local governments today: the recording turned into draft minutes, and the retention clock tracked from approval. We are bringing the platform to Wisconsin next. To bring Dekree to your office, email contact@dekree.ai with the subject line Wisconsin and we will add your office to the Wisconsin rollout list.
The destruction workflow around the rule
The 90-day floor sits inside Wisconsin’s broader destruction machinery, which deserves one paragraph here. Local units that have not adopted a records schedule by ordinance sit at the statutory default: most records cannot be destroyed before seven years unless the Public Records Board has fixed a shorter period. Adopting the statewide schedules (via the PRB filing and an adopting ordinance) is what puts the shorter, series-by-series periods in force. And before destroying obsolete records, a unit generally owes the Wisconsin Historical Society at least 60 days’ written notice, unless the notice has been waived for that series; the Society may claim records of historical interest. How the schedules, the ordinance, and the notice mechanics fit together is covered in our guide to Wisconsin retention schedules.
The usual closing caution applies. This is a records-management walkthrough, not legal advice; retention floors authorize disposal, they never require it, and your municipal attorney has the final word on holds, close calls, and anything the statute does not plainly cover.
Common questions
When does the 90-day clock start?
At approval and publication of the minutes, not at the meeting date. Wis. Stat. 19.21(7) says the recording may be destroyed "no sooner than 90 days after the minutes have been approved and published." Both events must have happened, so if your minutes are approved at the next meeting but published later, count the 90 days from the point at which both are complete. A recording of a January meeting whose minutes are approved and published in February is not eligible for destruction until May at the earliest.
Does this cover county board recordings?
The statute does not say so. Wis. Stat. 19.21(7) names recordings of meetings of a city, village, town, or school district; counties are not in that list. A county should not assume the 90-day rule applies to its recordings. Instead, confirm how the recording is treated under the county records schedule or ordinance that governs your records, and ask your corporation counsel before destroying anything. The pending-request freeze in 19.35(5) applies to every authority regardless.
Can we destroy the recording if someone requested it?
No. Wis. Stat. 19.35(5) prohibits destroying any record after a request for it is received until the request is granted, or until at least 60 days after the request is denied (at least 90 days if the requester is a committed or incarcerated person). If the authority receives written notice that a mandamus action under 19.37 has been commenced, the record cannot be destroyed until the court issues its order and the appeal deadline passes (and, if the order is appealed, until the appellate court rules). This freeze overrides the 90-day rule: a recording that is 200 days past minutes approval still cannot be destroyed while a request for it is pending.
Do we have to destroy the recording at 90 days?
No. The statute says the recording "may be destroyed no sooner than" 90 days after approval and publication. That is a floor that authorizes disposal, not a command to destroy. Many bodies keep recordings longer, or post them for residents indefinitely. Note the purpose condition, though: 19.21(7) applies when the purpose of the recording was to make minutes of the meeting. A recording your body keeps for other purposes carries whatever retention its content and your schedule require, so decide what the recording is for and treat it accordingly.
This article is educational information for Wisconsin authorities and governmental 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: docs.legis.wisconsin.gov.