Calculating Final Action Date: Subject Files

Example 4

Your office has several boxes of subject files that have accumulated over decades. On January 1, 2008, you are asked to clear space in preparation for the arrival of a new employee. In order to do so, you must get rid of several of these boxes. Upon examination, you find that these files date from 1980 to 2007.

You locate their series in the 1100, General Administration section of NIH Manual Chapter 1743, Keeping and Destroying Records under 1100-B-1-a, Subject Files. The disposition for 1100-B-1-a is "Permanent. Review files at 5-year intervals and transfer those which are no longer needed for reference to the Federal Records Center. Offer to the National Archives when 20 years old."

To implement the disposition, you review the records and determine whether they are needed for reference. You send the 1980 to 1987 files to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as one accession, or group of records, and the 1988 to 2002 files to the federal records center (FRC) as another accession, because neither accession contains any records needed for reference. After January 1, 2023, the FRC can send the accession to NARA. The records spanning 2003 to 2007 should also be reviewed and any files no longer needed for reference sent to the FRC. Records should be reviewed every five years. In this case, you would review them again in 2013.

More examples:

1. Minutes of NIH Advisory Committees
2. Passenger Reimbursement Files
3. Routine Procurement Files

National Institutes of Health
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Last Updated May 16, 2007 | Contact Us