Former Gov. Mike Easley ordered on his final day in office that all e-mails in executive-branch agencies be stored for at least 10 years and barred employees from deleting e-mails received for 24 hours so that they could be saved.

Easley's order, signed last Friday in response to a lawsuit filed by media outlets last year against him and recommendations of a subsequent state panel, could be altered under new Gov. Beverly Perdue.

Perdue said Monday that she and her office were still reviewing the order. Perdue had planned to issue her own order clarifying state e-mail retention policies to ensure all government messages should be preserved.

"I think that Gov. Easley did a good thing for the people when he issued that executive order," Perdue said.

Media groups who sued Easley, including The Associated Press, also were reviewing the order, said Hugh Stevens, an attorney for the outlets. The lawsuit is pending. Easley has argued there was no systematic destruction of public records.

Stevens said he was surprised by the last-minute order and expected to sit down with representatives for Perdue, who is now the defendant in the pending lawsuit.

The media groups had offered a draft executive order for Easley to consider in November as an out-of-court settlement. The final order contained some language found in the draft but there were some differences.

"This obviously changes things a little bit in the sense that the outgoing governor did nothing that none of us expected," Stevens said.

The media groups accused Easley and the administration last April of violating the state's public records law through the "systematic deletion, destruction or concealment" of e-mail messages.

The lawsuit stems from accusations made by Debbie Crane, a former spokeswoman at the Department of Health and Human Services.

She accused the governor's press office of directing public relations workers at Cabinet-level agencies to delete e-mails sent to and from the governor's office. Easley said there was no evidence that occurred.

Before the complaint was filed, Easley assembled a panel to recommend changes to the current e-mail retention guidelines.

The panel declined to recommend to change the retention policy, which allows an employee to delete a government e-mail when the worker determines the message has short-term or no value to the sender or receiver. The policy wasn't changed in Easley's order.

Easley's order, however directed executive branch employees to retain for at least 24 hours all e-mail messages sent or received. That would give state computer managers time to store all the messages on tape.

Panel members argued to store the tapes for only a five-year minimum in part to save money and because they questioned usefulness of keeping so many e-mails that were of little importance. But Easley agreed with the media outlets who sued him and recommended the 10-year minimum.

Storing five years of e-mail would cost about $375,000. A searchable e-mail archive system could cost at least $1 million for each year covered, state officials said last year.

Easley's order reinforced that e-mail messages should be preserved like paper documents and that government e-mail accounts can't be used for political purposes and in narrow personal circumstances.

The order also directs the state chief information officer and Department of Cultural Resources to find an e-mail archive system and the department to conduct training on retention policies and random agency audits to ensure the rules are followed.