When The Hamilton Southeastern School Board made the decision to live-stream their board meetings with an online video system, the previous board was willing to preserve those video recordings for 45 days and then delete them.  The board has since heard from a number of citizens in the area asking that these videos of board meetings be available longer.

On first reading, the board passed a measure Wednesday calling for board meeting videos to be available to the public for a minimum of 4 years from the date of the board meeting.  The vote was unanimous.  The same policy will be given a final vote by the board on second reading, likely in March.

Board member Julie Chambers offered the original motion to have these video recordings be made available to the public with no time frame, essentially making the video recordings available with no end date specified.

An amendment was offered to specify the retention period as 4 years and the amendment passed 5-1, with Julie Chambers voting no (board member Amanda Shera did not attend the Wednesday board meeting).  Chambers did vote for the main motion and it passed unanimously.

The school district has the video equipment in place but has not offered live-streaming for past board meetings on video yet.  The board voted to approve the contract with Swagit Productions to provide the video services.  The contract calls for a one-time payment to Swagit of $24,580 and the school corporation will pay a monthly fee of $1,288 for the ongoing video services.

It should be noted these video live-streaming and recordings are only available for meetings held in the HSE Schools Administration Building board room.  Any other meetings held at another site or in another room will not have video live-streaming or recordings.  Board work sessions are normally not held in the board room and would not be available on video.