Brewer presses Smith-Cruz on how employees determine what is substantive
Brewer asks how a city employee is supposed to know what counts as substantive versus transitory, giving the example of sending out policy material; Smith-Cruz says determination is based on continuous training, liaison relationships, quarterly records management officer meetings, and onboarding.
Okay, and then also just for Adora, so I understand what you're stating in terms of substantive.
I don't know what that means, though.
In other words, how is one supposed to know?
What gets included in what you would say should stay in the archival world.
How is one supposed to know that?
Because to me, sending out material regarding policy on, I don't know, composting, anything, would be substantive.
Go ahead.
Thank you so much for the question.
Chair, I would say that people know what's
Substantive is based on training.
And we have lots of training.
Training is continuous.
It's both at Doris and at the agencies citywide.
So the way that we administer training at Doris is we have multiple methods of sharing information.
So I'm calling it training, but it's also information sharing.
It includes a liaison model where there is a one-to-one relationship between liaisons at Doris and the agency's records management officer.
They can speak to each other anytime, and they're sort of on speed dial with each other.
We also have quarterly records management officer meetings for which Doris oversees, and all of the records management officers come.
They receive updates.
They receive new policies.
They're given guidance, and they're also given the opportunity for feedback and conversation.
And ultimately, it's a professional development moment during those meetings.
Finally, we have training as part of a new employee onboarding, including a presence on the DCAS's video learning platform.
So that oversees, that overviews records management policies and principles for all employees.
Most recently, we did supply guidance in April of 2026 to all agencies to support the determination and discernment of transitory versus substantive messages.
And it was formatted as like a one pager, so to speak, like nicely designed.
And it was an easy to follow summary guidance with recommended actions and practices to avoid, which linked to the platform.
policies and reiterated that instant messages and text messages are considered transitory and should not be used as the only record of substantive discussion policy or final decisions.