Declaring compliance with local government retention schedules is a lot like grocery shopping. Confused? Let me explain. However you look at it, every local government must declare compliance with a selection from TSLAC’s 12 local government retention schedules using either the SLR 512 (for elected officials) or SLR 508 (for everyone else). TSLAC has recommended…
You may have heard of TSLAC’s Local Government Retention Schedules when you started your new position with a local government. However, perhaps you have not been given much guidance in what they are or even how to use them. So, you find yourself asking this question: “How do I, as a beginner in records management…
The recertification process can be long and detailed—for the agency and for the analyst completing the review. One of the questions that we get during the process is, “How long does it take, and how does it work on TSLAC’s end?” This article explores how one Government Information Analyst approaches a schedule review. If you…
By Michelle Johnson Managing local government cemetery records can be a spooky business. Texas legislative code is positively haunted with regulations for cemetery operations! We often hear from municipality and county records managers asking, “Am I the custodian of this cemetery record?” Although cemetery record series all have permanent retention periods, it is important to…
When searching our local retention schedules, you may come across a record series that seems familiar—like a series you have seen before. This is not a sense of déjà vu. Sometimes the same series is included on different schedules, and there is a good reason we do that. In this edition of Remarkable Records, we…
With the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn brings in cooler weather, shorter days, and heralds in the spooky season. This season brings harvests, pumpkins, spectacular eye-catching displays, and eerie paranormal searches for the source of morbid curiosities. Searching for a sense of hair-raising sites and information of the departed, where might one…
A common icebreaker question among records professionals is, “What is your favorite record series?” While we all have our own “favorites,” the twelve local government retention schedules include several series one might call “remarkable,” including this one: PW5550-03c WILDLIFE RECORDS Necropsy reports on dead marine mammals. 3 years. By regulation – 9 CFR 3.110(g). Located…
Agencies or local governments that are tight on storage space might look forward to speedily carrying out disposition on records that have met their full retention periods, but there are cases when reaching a destruction eligibility date may not put the records manager in the clear to destroy or transfer those records. In those cases,…