Aiken City Council instituted a new email policy for themselves and City employees Monday.
Aiken's Assistant City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh said the City's policy was unclear, and the new policy spells out what email accounts City employees and Council members should use for business purposes, and for how long their emails must be archived.
Bedenbaugh said with court cases in the past dealing with the use of private accounts, officials wanted to change the policy because all email addresses handling City business are subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
"The prior policy could have been better about that," he said. "This was something our attorney (Gary Smith) felt comfortable incorporating into the new policy."
All City elected officials utilize their City-issued email accounts; however, at times, a Council member or two will send emails through their personal account.
Under the adopted policy, Bedenbaugh said City employees don't necessarily need to save "mundane" emails, such as the scheduling of meetings, but must save any communications about work-related projects or business activities for up to five years.
"And one thing to make it easier which was not mentioned in the policy, but in the last couple of months, we purchased a server that captures all emails that come in and out of the City's email server system," Bedenbaugh said. " ... When it came to pulling up old emails, it took quite a long time to build that up, and this helps quite a bit better."
Unlike the City, Aiken County does not have a clear policy for email usage and retention. But now that's subject to change.
According to the County's website, only two Council members appear to use their Aiken County designated addresses; the rest have personal accounts with outside providers including AOL, Comcast and Yahoo.
Several County elected officials, including Coroner Tim Carlton, also use their own private accounts to handle County business.
County Administrator Clay Killian said he, County attorney Jim Holly and Human Resources Director Gayle Wolman are working at adjusting their policy.
"Our policy right now doesn't address private use of email through that perspective. What it does say is you can't use County email or resources for your own private business," he said. "Meaning I can't use my Aiken County account to send pictures of my family members or order stuff from online. But the policy does not say they can't use their personal email for business use."
Echoing other media reports, Killian said most members use their personal accounts out of "convenience," since several Council members don't own a smartphone that can carry multiple emails or use email at all.
Council member Kathy Rawls, who does use her personal email, said she was aware policy discussions were in place, and if those policies do change, she will comply.
"What they do is still subject under the law; it's not illegal to use your private email account," Killian said, reiterating the difference between local government members and federal employees. "I'm not aware of any state law that requires government business to be conducted on government computers, but it's probably wise practice just for the sake of keeping records safe to do things through the Aiken County server in case their personal server crashes."
Killian said as of now, there is no definite timeline in place for when the County will address this issue, as discussions just started in the past few weeks.
Maayan Schechter is the local government reporter with Aiken Standard.