President, William Abernathie
Chief of Labor Relations, M. Eagleson
Senior Field Representative, Nancy Tate
Senior Field Representative, Mary Blanco

June 2010

Reviewing and Purging your Personnel File

           Any person employed by the County of San Bernardino shall be allowed to review his/her personnel records which are maintained within the agency/department of employment or the central Human Resources Department.

• Personnel records review shall be made only during working hours.
• Employee must sign an authorization for release of information.
• Employees desiring to review such records shall make such request in writing 24 hours in advance to the appointing authority or the County Personnel Officer as appropriate.
• Action on such request is to be taken within a reasonable time.

           If you ever had an investigation that led to some form of discipline and that discipline was modified at the Skelly Hearing, check your personnel file to make sure the original proposed discipline is in fact removed and/or replaced with the modified discipline. We have seen cases where the proposed discipline was still in the file and the modified discipline was not. It is up to you to check your personnel file periodically so you know exactly what is in there. You must follow the above listed procedure to review your file. This procedure pertains to your personnel file not your station/drop/supervisor file.

           If you disagree with anything in your personnel file, you may respond to the appointing authority in writing concerning that information. That response shall become a permanent part of your personnel record.

           The Probation Department does not have a purge policy at this time. This means that all of your department actions are in your personnel file and will stay there forever. This does not include Letters of Concern. They are purged after your next WPE is written.

The Sheriff's Department has a policy for purging station/division files and for purging personnel files.

           The policy for purging station/division files states that all documents maintained in the station/division files shall be purged after the information contained therein has been recorded in the annual performance evaluation and the purged documents shall be given to the concerned employee.

           The policy for purging personnel files states that at the conclusion of a seven (7) year period, the Internal Affairs Unit will automatically purge and destroy the personnel complaint, investigation and disposition from not only your personnel file, but also from your administrative file unless substantially similar conduct occurs during the initial seven (7) years.

           If you have any questions regarding this please contact your field representative.

President, William Abernathie
Chief of Labor Relations, M. Eagleson
Senior Field Representative, Nancy Tate
Senior Field Representative, Mary Blanco