Records Managers

NARA Bulletin 99-02

December 21, 1998

TO: Heads of Federal Agencies

SUBJECT: Withdrawal of General Records Schedule (GRS) 22, Inspector General Records

EXPIRATION DATE: December 31, 2000

1. What does this bulletin do?
This bulletin explains that:

  • GRS 22, covering records of agency Offices of Inspector General (OIG), has been withdrawn, effective December 21, 1998.

  • All OIG records previously disposable under GRS 22 are now to be considered unscheduled.

  • Agencies which have used GRS 22 to dispose of OIG records must now retain them until they submit, and receive NARA approval for, an agency specific SF 115 for these records.

Please read this entire bulletin carefully to learn how to fully and properly implement the changes resulting from this NARA action.

2. What was GRS 22?
GRS 22 was a general records schedule we issued to give Federal agencies disposition authority for certain temporary records in Offices of Inspector General (OIG), such as audit and investigative case files. However, unlike other general records schedules, GRS 22 did not apply to records of all agencies. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) and all of its components were required to schedule the records of their Offices of Inspector General because we believed that the Inspector General records in those agencies were more likely to have records with research value than the OIG records of other agencies. We withdrew GRS 22 today when we issued the new GRS Transmittal 8.

3. Why did we withdraw GRS 22?
We withdrew GRS 22 after we conducted a review of the disposition authorities agencies used for their OIG records. Our review showed that we had approved exceptions to GRS 22 for many agencies that wanted to schedule their OIG investigative or audit files separately from the GRS. The various exceptions and exclusions we had approved showed the shortcomings of GRS 22 as a Government-wide disposition authority. In addition, if you used the GRS 22 as authority for disposal of your agency's Inspector General files, we did not have an opportunity to appraise your investigative and audit case files to determine whether any of them were permanent.

4. What is the current status of my OIG records?

  1. If you used GRS 22 as the disposition authority for your Inspector General records, they are now considered unscheduled and may not be destroyed. You must send us an SF 115, Request for Records Disposition Authority, as you do for other agency records, to be able to destroy these records. We will provide specific guidance to agency records officers on scheduling OIG records. If you wish to retire unscheduled OIG records to a NARA record center prior to NARA approval of the SF 115, you will need to request an exception as provided in 36 CFR 1228.152(a)(1).

  2. If we have granted you an exception to GRS 22 in a previously approved records schedule, you do not have to take any action. Your approved records schedule remains in effect.

  3. If you are an agency that was exempt from GRS 22 (CIA or a component of the Department of Defense), you do not have to take any action. Your approved records schedule remains in effect.

5. What do I do about the records that were eligible for disposal under GRS 22?

  1. If you have records that are eligible for disposal under GRS 22, you must retain them until we approve an SF 115 authorizing their disposal.

  2. Withdrawing GRS 22 does not automatically freeze all OIG records stored at the Washington National Records Center and regional records service facilities. These NARA operations will attempt to identify all records retired under GRS 22 to prevent their disposal before your SF 115 for those records is approved. However, if you do receive a disposal notice for OIG records based on a GRS 22 authority, you must notify the NARA facility in writing before the disposal date that the records were covered by GRS 22 and are now unscheduled. This will be more likely to happen if you incorporated the GRS 22 authorities into your records manual and cited the agency manual number instead of GRS 22 when you retired the records to NARA.

6. What if I have questions?
Please contact the appropriate NARA records center facility with questions about Inspector General records that you have sent to them. If you have questions about the scheduling process, please contact your Life Cycle Management Division liaison at NARA. You may find out whom to contact from the NARA web site .

JOHN W. CARLIN
Archivist of the United States

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