We have talked with a number of smaller municipalities and special districts about 'Sunshine' compliance and their email. Alarmingly, there are many municipalities that have potentially major compliance issues either with their board members and/or their own internal usage.

You've probably seen the news articles about cities that have been sued and commissioners who have been recalled, and even jailed, over public records issues.

So, we have compiled the three most common pieces of advice we've offered these municipalities to help them stay out of trouble:

1. Avoid using your personal Yahoo, GMail, Blackberry, business, or other non-municipal email accounts to send/receive government-related emails.

2. Do not have government emails delivered to your common Inbox in Outlook or other desktop email software. Outlook often automatically removes emails from the mail server, meaning that the only remaining copy is on your hard drive. This is what leads to subpoenas for your personal hard drive data.

Additionally, Outlook may automatically "archive" emails on your local hard drive. While this may sound good, if your hard drive crashes, or you purchase a new PC and don't find and copy all of the unique archive files, you have now broken records retention laws. The correct way to archive is at the server level, not at the desktop.

3. Your municipality should avoid using email provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP), or GMail, Yahoo, or any other free services. In addition to the cadre of other security issues these services pose, along with just not looking very professional, these email accounts are not automatically archived by the server. This means that once you delete an email from your account, even accidentally, it is gone. Again, violating records retention laws.

"But it costs a lot..."
Vistalogix's federal GSA contract allows state and local government to purchase our basic email hosting for a mere $35/user PER YEAR - and it includes not only server-level archiving, but 256-bit SSL encryption, multi-layer virus/spam protection, shared calendars, smartphone integration, and an array of other useful features specifically geared toward government. It's even included in our ($200/mo.) government website bundles (another topic worth addressing for many smaller government offices).

So, there is really no reason to have compliance issues for any size municipality.

For users who require tighter Outlook integration, or the full functionality of Microsoft Exchange Server, we offer fully managed, hosted Microsoft Exchange 2010, which eliminates having to pay for your own in-house server, security, and maintenance. Like our basic email service, hosted Exchange includes server-level archiving, iPhone/Droid/Blackberry integration, web access (OWA), and full encryption - all for ~$10/user per month.

You can learn more about potential compliance issues in the Enterprise Email section of our website: www.vistalogix.com/email