Albany, NY – Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration on Friday ended its practice of automatically deleting emails after 90 days following criticism that it was an affront to open government.
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Instead, administration staffers will manually delete emails as they choose – though emails containing certain important records will be retained longer.
Cuomo will also seek to introduce legislation that would close a loophole in existing law that largely exempts the state Senate and Assembly from existing open records laws, according to Bill Mulrow, a top Cuomo aide.
The announcements came at a meeting Friday between the administration and representatives of the state comptroller and attorney general. The meeting was called by Cuomo’s office to discuss the creation of a uniform email retention policy and open records policy for all state agencies.
Top lawmakers skipped the meeting, a decision that Mulrow said amounted to “essentially boycotting a meeting on transparency.”
Of the loophole allowing the Legislature to ignore many records requirements, Mulrow said, “I find that simply outrageous and inexplicable.”