Bill Proposes Local Government Email Act
Lost in the shuffle of numerous bills being introduced in both the Illinois House and Senate is a bill creating the "Local Government Email Act." This bill, if passed, would affect the communications of employees, officials, and officers of all units of local government and school districts in the state. We reported on similar legislation introduced last year here - that legislation did not pass.
The stated policy of HB 4375 is that all emails that are in connection with the transaction of public business sent or received by a unit of local government or school district or an employee, staff member, trustee, board member, elected official, or officer of a unit of local government or school district are public records regardless of the device used to send or receive the email.
Section 10(a) of the bill provides that if a local government or school district provides a government email address to any of its employees, officials, or officers it must provide a government email address to all government employees, officials, and officers.
Section 10(b) of the bill provides that if a government email address is provided to government employees, officials, or officers, then those individuals must use that government email for all government communications.
Section 10(c) of the bill provides that if a government official, officer, or employee has a government email address, and receives or sends a government communication on his or her private email, the individual must then forward the government communication to his or her government email account.
That same section also provides that if a government official, officer, or employee does not have a government email address, then he or she must provide a copy of all government communications sent/received on his or her personal email account to the local government or school district.
We will certainly keep track of this bill since it would affect all units of local government (interestingly, the bill does not apply to emails sent/received by state officials, officers, or employees).
Post Authored by Julie Tappendorf
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