Government Records Management: Compliance Requirements for Public Sector Organizations

September 01, 2026Posted by: Tony Acerra

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Public sector recordkeeping carries a burden the private sector never faces: the records belong to the public, and the public can ask for them. A federal agency answers to the National Archives and Records Administration, to inspectors general, and to anyone who files a Freedom of Information Act request. A county clerk answers to a state schedule written specifically for county clerks. This guide covers the legal framework behind government records management, what changed with the transition to electronic records, where agencies actually stand against those requirements, and how to build a program that holds up under audit and under public scrutiny.

The Legal Framework Behind Federal Records Management

The phrase “Federal Records Act” is shorthand rather than a single statute. NARA’s own regulation puts the boundaries plainly: 36 CFR 1220.2 states that the subchapter implements the provisions of 44 U.S.C. Chapters 21, 29, 31, and 33. Chapter 21 establishes NARA and the Archivist’s duties. Chapter 29 assigns records management responsibilities across NARA and the General Services Administration. Chapter 31 is the agency-facing chapter. Chapter 33 governs disposition.

Two obligations from Chapter 31 do most of the work in practice. Section 3101 requires the head of each agency to make and preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Section 3102 requires each agency head to establish and maintain an active, continuing program for the economical and efficient management of the records of the agency. The first is about what gets captured. The second is about whether anyone is running the program that keeps it.

NARA’s regulations then translate those duties into operating requirements: creating and maintaining records (Part 1222), managing vital records for continuity (Part 1223), running a disposition program (Part 1224), scheduling every series (Part 1225), transferring records to storage facilities and the standards those facilities must meet (Parts 1232 and 1234), and managing electronic records including digitization (Part 1236). This is the same lifecycle logic behind any mature records governance framework, with the difference that in government the rules are published, enforceable, and subject to inspection.

What Changed With the Transition to Electronic Records

The transition began with M-19-21, issued jointly by OMB and NARA in June 2019, and was updated by M-23-07 in December 2022, which moved the target dates after pandemic-era delays. M-23-07 set four requirements. Agencies must manage all permanent records in electronic format. They must transfer permanent records to NARA electronically with appropriate metadata, with a limited exception process available. They must manage temporary records electronically or store them in commercial records storage facilities, closing agency-operated storage facilities in the process. And after June 30, 2024, NARA no longer accepts transfers in analog formats.

The nuance matters more than the headline. M-23-07 also states that NARA will continue to store and service analog records transferred to a Federal Records Center by June 30, 2024 until their scheduled disposition date, and will then accession the permanent ones in their original analog format. Transfer requests submitted before the deadline were treated the same way. Limited exceptions were granted where they were justified, including a documented exception allowing paper employee medical folders to keep moving to the National Personnel Records Center through mid 2027. In other words, the deadline changed what agencies may send NARA going forward. It did not erase decades of paper already in the pipeline, and it did not shorten a single retention period.

That last point is worth stating clearly, because it is where agencies most often get the reasoning backwards. Converting a record to digital form changes how it is stored and retrieved. It does not change how long the record must be kept. The retention schedule governs the life of the record regardless of format, and a records program that treats paper and digital holdings as one governed population, under one schedule and one review process, is far easier to defend than one that manages them as separate worlds.

Where Agencies Actually Stand

NARA publishes a consolidated view of agency performance each year, drawing on the senior agency official report, the Records Management Self-Assessment, and the electronic records and email management report. The 2024 Federal Agency Records Management Annual Report, published in December 2025, is the current edition. The data is self-reported, which NARA acknowledges, but the response rate is near universal and the trends are consistent enough to be useful.

The direction of travel is good. Self-assessment results showed low-risk ratings jumping six points to 44 percent, the largest single-year improvement in nearly a decade, while high-risk ratings dropped four points to 10 percent, the lowest ever recorded. Email management scored better still, with 77 percent of agencies rated low risk.

The gaps are specific rather than general. Of the 44 agencies that missed the electronic records deadline, 22 had already filed an exception request and four more intended to, leaving 18 agencies, 12 percent of the total, past the deadline with no exception in place. Among agencies claiming to use the Capstone schedule for electronic messages beyond email, NARA found that 47 percent had answered incorrectly, suggesting widespread confusion about scheduling text messages and chat. Only 29 percent said their records staff actively participate in decisions about how systems are developed and maintained, which is how records requirements end up bolted on rather than built in. And the digitization gap, 86 percent applying the standards against 71 percent validating the output, is the one with the clearest operational fix: quality management and validation are explicit requirements of 36 CFR 1236 Subpart E, not optional extras, and they are what turns a scanning project into a defensible digitization program. Agencies working toward that standard often start by aligning imaging specifications with federal digitization guidelines, a question we cover in more detail in our note on whether a document management solution is FADGI compliant.

Scheduling: General Records Schedules and Agency Schedules

Every federal record series needs an approved disposition authority, and the General Records Schedules supply that authority for the categories every agency has: personnel, procurement, budget, facilities, information technology, and similar support functions. Because those categories are common, NARA schedules them centrally so that 400 agencies do not each submit a schedule for travel vouchers. The GRS typically do not cover records documenting the mission of an agency, which is what agency-specific schedules exist for.

Two operational details trip programs up. First, the GRS are revised through transmittals, and an agency that wants to retain an existing disposition item has to file a notification rather than simply carrying on. Second, a schedule is only useful if the inventory underneath it is accurate. An agency with a current schedule and an unindexed warehouse has a compliance document, not a compliance program. Building the inventory first and the records retention policy on top of it is the sequence that holds together. Our federal record retention guidelines collect the authorities agencies check most often in one place, including the General Records Schedules, the eCFR, and FAR Subpart 4.7 for contractor records.

State, County, and City Requirements Are Not the Same

This is the question public sector organizations ask most often, and the answer is not the reassuring one. State agencies follow schedules issued by their state archives. Local governments usually follow a different set of schedules issued by the same body. The New York State Archives, for example, issues retention schedules for both state agencies and local governments, with separate sets for local government records, state agency records, court records, and New York City records. Texas goes further and publishes a dozen distinct local government schedules through the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, including separate schedules for county clerks, district clerks, elections and voter registration, and public health agencies, each with its own edition and effective date. Texas local governments also have to file a declaration of compliance before those schedules can authorize any disposition at all. Because the picture is different in every jurisdiction, we publish record retention guidelines by state, with the authority citation behind each entry.

The practical consequence for a multi-jurisdiction organization, or for a state agency with regional offices, is that “the retention schedule” is not one document. Consolidating storage and digitization across jurisdictions is entirely reasonable. Consolidating retention rules is not. The program has to be able to apply different schedules to different record populations while keeping one custody trail, which is a design requirement worth settling before any migration begins rather than after.

FOIA and Public Records Readiness

5 U.S.C. 552 gives agencies 20 days, excluding weekends and federal holidays, to determine whether to comply with a request and to notify the requester of that determination, the reasons for it, the right to seek assistance from the agency’s FOIA Public Liaison, and any appeal rights. The clock starts when the request reaches the appropriate component, and in any event no later than ten days after any component receives it. The statute allows extension only in defined unusual circumstances, and it does not allow the period to be tolled while staff hunt through boxes.

The same statute requires agencies to make certain records available electronically, including records that have been requested three or more times. Both obligations reward the same thing: knowing what you hold, where it is, and how fast you can put your hands on it. Agencies whose holdings sit in uninventoried storage carry a second risk on top of the deadline, which is that the records may not survive to be produced at all. Environmental damage to paper holdings is a quiet, common failure, and one we have written about in the context of archival risks for government agencies.

Building a Program That Holds Up

Start with ownership, because a program without a named owner is a policy document. Federal agencies already have a senior agency official for records management; the equivalent role at state and local level is often unfilled or informal, and filling it is the cheapest improvement available. Then inventory. Boxes, shared drives, legacy systems, and the electronic messages nobody scheduled all count, and the inventory is what makes every later decision possible.

Schedules come next, mapped series by series to what the inventory found, using the GRS where they apply and agency or jurisdiction schedules where they do not, and the state-by-state retention guidelines are a quick way to confirm what a given jurisdiction expects before a series is mapped to it. Then storage and conversion. Records that stay physical belong in facilities that meet the applicable standards, which is a specific reason many agencies moved inactive holdings into secure offsite document storage after M-23-07 pushed them to close their own facilities. Records being converted belong in a digitization workflow with quality management and validation built in, not a scanning job with no acceptance criteria. Our high-volume scanning work for public sector clients is built around exactly that distinction.

Finally, treat the end of a retention period as a review point. The schedule tells you when a record becomes eligible for a disposition decision. It does not make the decision for you. A documented review, with the reasoning and the approval recorded, is what makes whatever happens next defensible, and continued retention is a perfectly legitimate outcome of that review. Agencies that build this into the workflow, rather than treating the schedule as an autopilot, are the ones whose programs survive an inspection. The broader mechanics of running this across a large organization are covered in our guide to enterprise records management, and our public sector solutions overview sets out how counties, cities, and state agencies typically phase the work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is government records management?

Government records management is the practice of creating, scheduling, storing, retrieving, and reviewing public records so a government body can meet its legal obligations. It covers records in every format, sets how long each type must be kept, and ensures records can be produced on demand for audits, litigation, and public records requests. Federal agencies operate under the Federal Records Act framework and NARA regulation; state and local bodies operate under their own state’s public records act and retention schedules.

What laws govern federal records management?

The core framework sits in four chapters of Title 44 of the U.S. Code: Chapter 21 establishing NARA, Chapter 29 assigning records management responsibilities, Chapter 31 setting agency duties, and Chapter 33 governing disposition. NARA implements these through 36 CFR Chapter XII, Subchapter B, which covers record creation, vital records, scheduling, disposition, storage facility standards, and electronic records including digitization.

Did NARA stop accepting paper records in 2024?

NARA stopped accepting new transfers of records in analog formats after June 30, 2024, under OMB memorandum M-23-07. It continues to store and service analog records that reached a Federal Records Center by that date until their scheduled disposition, and will accession the permanent ones in their original format. Transfer requests submitted before the deadline were also honored in the original format, and limited exceptions were approved for specific record types.

Do county and city retention schedules differ from state schedules?

Yes, in most states. State archives typically issue one set of schedules for state agencies and a separate set for local governments, and the local sets are often broken down further by office type. Texas, for example, publishes distinct schedules for county clerks, district clerks, elections offices, and public health agencies, each with its own edition and effective date. A records program covering multiple jurisdictions has to apply the correct schedule to each population rather than a single blended rule.

How long does an agency have to respond to a FOIA request?

Twenty business days from receipt, under 5 U.S.C. 552, to determine whether it will comply with the request and to notify the requester of that determination and the reasons for it. The deadline applies to the determination rather than to delivery of the records, and it cannot be paused while records are located. Extensions are available only in the unusual circumstances the statute defines.

Conclusion: Compliance Is a Retrieval Problem

Almost every government records requirement reduces to the same test. Can you show what you hold, prove it is scheduled, produce it inside a statutory deadline, and document the decisions you made about it? The statutes and regulations set the terms, but the failures are operational: uninventoried holdings, schedules nobody mapped, digitization with no validation step, and a retention date treated as an automatic instruction rather than a review.

GRM works with federal, state, county, and municipal organizations on the practical side of that problem, from inventorying and scheduling legacy holdings to standards-based digitization and secure storage that meets published facility requirements, across physical and digital records under one program. Request a free quote to scope your agency’s holdings and build the plan.