The Legislature finds that the use of electronic technology and other procedures to manage and preserve public records by counties should be uniform throughout the state where possible.
(a) The governing body and the chief elected official of a county, hereinafter referred to as a county government entity, whether organized and existing under a charter or under general law, shall promote the principles of efficient records management and preservation of local records. A county governing entity may, as far as practical, follow the program established for the uniform management and preservation of county records as set out in rules proposed for legislative approval in accordance with the provisions of 29A-3-1 et seq. of this code as proposed by the Records Management and Preservation Board.
(b) In the event a county government entity decides to destroy or otherwise dispose of a county record, the county government entity may, prior to destruction or disposal thereof, offer the record to the director of Archives and History within the Department of Arts, Culture, and History for preservation of the record as a document of historical value. Unless authorized by the Supreme Court of Appeals, the records of courts of record and magistrate courts are not affected by the provisions of this section.
(c)(1) A preservation duplicate of a county government entity record may be stored in any format approved by the board in which the image of the original record is preserved in a form, including electronic file, in which the image is incapable of erasure or alteration and from which a reproduction of the stored record may be retrieved that truly and accurately depicts the image of the original county government record.
(2) Except for those formats, processes, and systems used for the storage of records on the effective date of this section, no alternate format for the storage of county government entity records described in this section is authorized for the storage of county government entity records unless the particular format has been approved pursuant to a legislative rule promulgated by the board in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 29A of this code. The board may prohibit the use of any format, process, or system used for the storage of records upon its determination that the same is not reasonably adequate to preserve the records from destruction, alteration, or decay.