Quincy schools drop records index

QUINCY - The Quincy School District Board of Directors decided Tuesday not to start and maintain an index of public records.

"There is maybe a not so well known regulation on the state law books that says entities such as ours are supposed to keep, establish and maintain an up-to-date records index for all the public records that we may have on file or in storage throughout our system," District Superintendent Burton Dickerson explained at the board meeting.

Dickerson said Quincy has much of the same reports and documents that organizations of any size might have. Taking on the responsibility would be an "overly burdensome task" from his point of view, especially for smaller school districts such as Quincy, he said.

"We don't currently have one, never had one," he noted.

To be in compliance with the regulation, the school district either needs to keep an index or adopt a resolution with the rational for dispensing of the index, he said.

According to Quincy's approved resolution, "Maintaining said index requires additional staff time, available funding is inadequate to provide additional staff, (and the) agency size is comparatively small, yet variety and number of records is similar to much larger, similar agencies."