AC 36.2016

September 7, 2016

MEMORANDUM TO FEDERAL AGENCY CONTACTS: NARA's GRS Transmittal 26

The Office of the Chief Records Officer is happy to announce the publication of General Records Schedule (GRS) Transmittal 26. It is now available on our website at http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/grs/ and attached to this memo. The transmittal includes GRS schedules that have previously been issued, including GRS 1-27, as well as the new schedules issued in GRS Transmittal 23 through 25.

This transmittal publishes one new schedule:
GRS 4.4 Library Records (DAA-GRS-2015-0003)

It also publishes new or updated items in four schedules:
GRS 1.1 Financial Management and Reporting Records
GRS 2.8 Employee Ethics Records
GRS 4.2 Information Access and Protection Records
GRS 6.1 Email Managed under a Capstone Approach

GRS 6.1 updates include an alteration to permanent item 010 to revise the transfer date from 15 years to a 15-to-25-year band. FAQ 8 provides information about this change. In addition, we changed the cut-off for item 010 from the end of the calendar year to “in accordance with the agency’s business needs,” a change announced by AC 18.2016. FAQ 7 provides further information about this change. Finally, new FAQs 19 and 21-26 address how agencies may handle legacy email.

Agency Records Officers must disseminate the new schedules within their agencies no later than February 2017.

Use of the new GRS is mandatory and applies retrospectively and day-forward for all described records. If your agency intends to use agency-specific schedule items instead any item in the newly issued schedules (see list above), you must inform GRS_Team@nara.gov by December 30, 2016. You will need to provide the agency-specific schedule and item numbers as well as the related GRS item (a template is available here). Agencies wishing to use agency-specific schedule items instead of any other GRS items must submit a new schedule requesting a deviation from the GRS.

For more information, please see the GRS web page. If you have any questions about the GRS, please contact GRS_Team@nara.gov.

LAURENCE BREWER
Chief Records Officer
for the U.S. Government

Attachments:
AC 36.2016 grs-trs26.pdf