Indiana records retention, explained: the schedules, the commission, and when you may destroy a record.
Indiana approves one set of retention schedules for every local unit in the state. Your county commission implements them; it does not get to change them. Here is how the system fits together, the two lawful paths to destruction, and the four guardrails that sit on top of every schedule.
- Who approves schedules
- The Oversight Committee on Public Records has final approval of all records retention schedules, statewide (IC 5-15-5.1-19(b))
- County commission role
- Implementation, not policy: OCPR-adopted schedules must be implemented within 30 days, and shorter retention may not even be considered (IC 5-15-6-2.5(a), (c))
- Scheduled destruction
- Destroy once retention has run, then file State Form 44905, Notice of Destruction, with the county commission, copy to IARA (IC 5-15-6-2.5(d))
- Unscheduled records
- Requests go to both the county commission and IARA before any disposal (IC 5-15-6-2.5(b))
- Financial records
- No destruction until the State Board of Accounts audit is complete, the report filed, and exceptions satisfied, unless first copied under a schedule or with IARA’s written consent (IC 5-15-6-3)
- The teeth
- Destroying a public record outside a schedule or without commission approval is a Level 6 felony (IC 5-15-6-8)
One committee in Indianapolis approves every schedule
Indiana runs records retention from the top. The Oversight Committee on Public Records (OCPR) “has final approval of all records retention schedules” (IC 5-15-5.1-19(b)). Not final approval of state agency schedules with local ones handled elsewhere: all of them, for every level of Indiana government. The committee is built for that job. Its ex officio members include the state examiner of the State Board of Accounts, the public access counselor, the state’s chief information officer, the director of the Indiana Archives and Records Administration, and a circuit court clerk or county recorder who actually serves on a county commission of public records (IC 5-15-5.1-18).
The Indiana Archives and Records Administration (IARA) develops the county and local schedules that the OCPR approves, and publishes them. The practical consequence for a clerk, auditor, or trustee: the retention period for your minutes is the same in Posey County as it is in Steuben County. Nobody negotiates a local variation, and nobody has to draft an office-specific schedule from scratch just to be allowed to throw anything away.
Your county commission implements; it does not decide
Every Indiana county has a county commission of public records (IC 5-15-6-1): seven ex officio members, including the circuit court judge, the president of the board of county commissioners, the auditor, the clerk of the circuit court, and the recorder, or their designees. The name suggests a policy body. The statute makes it an implementation body.
The commission must implement the retention schedules the OCPR adopts, not more than 30 days after adoption (IC 5-15-6-2.5(a)). And when someone asks for an exception, the commission’s discretion runs one way only: it may not consider requests to retain records for a shorter period than the approved schedule (IC 5-15-6-2.5(c)). Longer is a conversation; shorter is off the table before the meeting starts.
What the commission actually does, month to month, is paperwork with legal weight: it receives the Notices of Destruction that document scheduled disposals, and it is one of the two approvals needed before an unscheduled record can be destroyed. Both of those come next.
The lookup rule: office schedule first, then GEN
IARA publishes the schedules as PDFs on its county and local retention schedules page: 16 statewide schedules covering roughly 300 live record series. One of them, the County/Local General Retention Schedule (GEN), applies to every local unit in the state: counties, cities, towns, townships, school corporations, libraries. The rest are office and function schedules: Township Trustee, Non-Judicial County Clerk, County Recorder, County Auditor, Treasurer, Assessing Official, Public Safety Agencies, Public Libraries, Educational Institutions, and so on. The lookup rule is two steps: check your office schedule first, then GEN. If your office schedule lists the record type, that entry governs; if not, GEN almost certainly does. (Cities and towns run almost entirely on GEN and the function schedules; the Cities & Towns schedule itself was consolidated down to a single live series in 2026.)
What the entries look like in practice, quoted from the schedules:
- GEN 10-01, Minutes: “PERMANENT and CRITICAL. See Retention Schedule Instructions for format and transfer options.” Your minutes never become eligible for destruction.
- GEN 10-04, General Files: “DESTROY after three (3) years.” The workhorse series for routine correspondence and office files.
- GEN 10-11, Basic Accounting Records (Expenditures): “DESTROY after ten (10) years and after receipt of State Board of Accounts Audit Report and satisfaction of unsettled charges.” Note the AND: ten years alone is not enough.
- LAND 15-01, Building Permits and Construction Project Records: “DESTROY ten (10) years after completion of the related construction or last renewal of permit, whichever is sooner.”
Every series carries an ID like these, and the ID is what you cite on your destruction paperwork. Key on the record series ID, not the printed item number; the schedules themselves warn that item numbers can vary between printings.
When you may destroy: two paths, opposite order
Path one: the record is on a schedule and its retention has run. You may destroy it. No prior sign-off, no waiting on a meeting; IARA’s own guidance says plainly that you do not need its permission before a scheduled destruction. The obligation comes after the fact: local government officers submit documentation of the destruction to the county commission, with a copy to IARA (IC 5-15-6-2.5(d)). The document is State Form 44905, the Notice of Destruction: which series, what date range, when destroyed. File it every time, because that filing is what makes the destruction provably routine.
Path two: the record is not on any schedule. The order reverses completely. Requests to destroy, transfer, or otherwise dispose of unscheduled records go to both the county commission and IARA before anything happens (IC 5-15-6-2.5(b)), and destruction becomes lawful only through the commission’s written approval or an entry on its minutes (IC 5-15-6-8). The background rule of IC 5-15-5.1-14(a) is absolute on this point: no disposal of any government record except under a retention schedule or with IARA’s written consent.
The discipline this implies is simple to state: before anything reaches a shredder, name the series that authorizes it. A record that maps to no series is not a judgment call; it is a request form.
The guardrails that override the schedule
A retention period that has run is necessary but not sufficient. Four guardrails sit on top of every schedule:
- The audit gate. Financial records, and records relating to financial records, may not be destroyed until the State Board of Accounts audit has been completed, the report filed, and any exceptions in the report satisfied, unless the records were first copied or reproduced under a schedule or with IARA’s written consent (IC 5-15-6-3).
- The three-year floor. No records may be destroyed, removed, or transferred within three years of filing unless an approved retention schedule authorizes it, and even past three years, records in frequent use stay put (IC 5-15-6-4). The schedule is the only thing that beats the floor.
- Confidential means unrecoverable. Records designated confidential by law must be destroyed so they cannot be read, interpreted, or reconstructed (IC 5-15-5.1-13). Tossing personnel or health records in the recycling bin intact is its own violation, even when the retention period has fully run.
- The holds. Do not destroy anything under audit, in litigation, under investigation, or responsive to a pending records request. IARA’s guidance states this directly, and APRA supplies the statutory duty behind the last one: a public agency shall protect public records from loss, alteration, mutilation, or destruction (IC 5-14-3-7(a)). Shredding a record while a request for it sits open (the clocks are covered in our APRA deadlines guide) converts a records question into a liability question, and the 2026 APRA amendments have only raised the temperature around agency handling of requests.
Dekree runs this workflow for Michigan local governments today: every retention rule seeded from the official schedules, verified line by line against the source, with destruction eligibility computed per record. 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.
The teeth, and the record that protects you
The penalty provision is not decorative. A public official or other person who recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally destroys or damages any public record commits a Level 6 felony (IC 5-15-6-8), unless one of three exceptions applies: the commission approved the destruction in writing, the commission entered its approval on its own minutes, or an approved retention schedule authorized it. Notice what is not on that list: good intentions, a full storage room, or a predecessor’s mess. The civil prohibition runs alongside it: no official or agency may mutilate, destroy, sell, loan, or otherwise dispose of any government record except under a retention schedule or with IARA’s written consent (IC 5-15-5.1-14(a)).
The flip side is the quiet advantage of Indiana’s system. Because the schedules are statewide and the paperwork is standardized, a lawful destruction is easy to prove: the series ID authorized it, the Notice of Destruction documents it, the county commission and IARA both have it on file. The schedules even make the proof permanent; GEN 20-01, Documentation of Public Records Disposition, is itself a permanent record. An office that names the series before it destroys, files Form 44905 after, and honors the four guardrails can answer “where is that record?” with “lawfully destroyed, and here is the authority” without flinching. The offices that get in trouble are almost never the ones that destroyed too little.
Common questions
Do we need permission to destroy records?
It depends on whether the record is on a schedule. For records covered by an approved retention schedule whose retention period has run, no prior permission is needed: the schedule itself is the authority. You destroy, then file State Form 44905, the Notice of Destruction, with your county commission of public records, with a copy to the Indiana Archives and Records Administration (IC 5-15-6-2.5(d)). For records NOT covered by any schedule, the order reverses: the request goes to both the county commission and IARA before anything is disposed of (IC 5-15-6-2.5(b)), and destruction without that approval is the conduct IC 5-15-6-8 criminalizes.
What happens if we destroy something we should not have?
A public official or other person who recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally destroys or damages any public record commits a Level 6 felony under IC 5-15-6-8, unless one of three exceptions applies: the commission gave written approval, the commission entered its approval on its own minutes, or an approved retention schedule authorized the destruction. Separately, IC 5-15-5.1-14(a) prohibits any disposal of a government record except under a retention schedule or with IARA’s written consent. Cleaning out a storage room in good faith is not one of the exceptions.
Which schedule applies to our office?
Check the office or function schedule first, then the County/Local General Retention Schedule (GEN). IARA publishes 16 statewide schedules: GEN applies to every local unit (counties, cities, towns, townships, schools, libraries), and offices like the Township Trustee, County Recorder, County Auditor, and public safety agencies have their own schedules on top of it. If a record type appears in your office schedule, that entry governs; everything else falls to GEN. A record on no schedule at all cannot be destroyed without written approval from both the county commission and IARA.
Can our county commission shorten a retention period?
No. The county commission of public records must implement the schedules the Oversight Committee on Public Records adopts, within 30 days of adoption (IC 5-15-6-2.5(a)), and it may not even consider a request to keep records for a shorter period than the approved schedule requires (IC 5-15-6-2.5(c)). Retention periods are set once, statewide. Keeping records longer than the schedule requires is a local policy choice; keeping them for less time is not on the table.
Can we destroy financial records the day their retention period ends?
Usually not. IC 5-15-6-3 blocks destruction of financial records, and records relating to financial records, until the State Board of Accounts audit has been completed, the report filed, and any exceptions set out in the report satisfied, unless the records have first been copied or reproduced under a schedule or with IARA’s written consent. Several schedule entries build this in expressly: GEN 10-11 requires ten years AND receipt of the SBOA audit report with unsettled charges satisfied before expenditure records go.
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.