# Municipal clerk records retention software that knows which box is legally destroyable this quarter

> Municipal clerk records retention is the practice of keeping each series of records a city creates for the minimum period its state schedule requires, then destroying it on an approved and documented schedule. There were 90,837 local governments in the United States in 2022, rising to 91,438 by 2025, and each answers to a schedule it did not write. Neurobird holds the series, the trigger event, the hold and the destruction approval in one register.

- URL: https://neurobird.com/clerkrecords/
- Product: Neurobird Municipal Clerk Records Retention Compliance Platform
- Niche: municipal clerk records retention
- Buyer: municipal clerks and records officers
- Status: in development, open for early access
- Updated: 2026-08-21

## What Neurobird Municipal Clerk Records Retention does

- Encode your state retention schedule as data rather than as a PDF on a shared drive
- Attach the trigger event to the record so the clock can actually start
- Check legal holds and open records requests before anything becomes eligible
- Document destruction approvals so a disposal is defensible years later

## How it works

1. **Load your state schedule** Series, minimum retention and trigger event come in as data, so a schedule revision is an update rather than a rewrite of everything.
2. **Attach the trigger, not just the date** Contract closed, employee separated, structure demolished. The record carries the event that starts its clock, so eligibility can be calculated at all.
3. **Approve destruction on the record** Eligible series surface with their hold status and the approval that authorises disposal, and the approval stays attached for as long as anybody might ask.

## From the source material

> State agencies’ retention schedules indicate that historical records must be transferred to the State Archives following the Procedures for Transferring Records to the New York State Archives.

Source: New York State Archives, retention schedules, https://www.archives.nysed.gov/records/retention-schedules

## Industry context

- **90,837** Local governments counted in the 2022 Census of Governments, rising to 91,438 by 2025. Nearly every one has a clerk who personally owns records retention. (source: US Census Bureau, government organization summary, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2026/econ/govtorg2225.html)
- **22 months** Federal law requires records relating to any federal election to be retained for 22 months after the election, a period that runs whatever a state schedule says. (source: Cornell Law School, 52 U.S. Code 20701, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/20701)
- **2020** New York consolidated its separate local government schedules into a single Retention and Disposition Schedule in 2020, so clerks who had learned the old schedule numbers had to relearn the entire crosswalk. (source: New York State Archives, retention schedules, https://www.archives.nysed.gov/records/retention-schedules)
- **1226** Federal records may not be destroyed without an approved disposition authority, the principle every state archives adapted when it built local government schedules. (source: eCFR, 36 CFR Part 1226, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-XII/subchapter-B/part-1226)
- **50-18-92** Georgia's local government schedules set minimum retention periods approved by the State Records Committee under statute, which is why an unapproved destruction is a legal matter rather than a filing error. (source: Georgia Archives, local government retention schedules, https://www.georgiaarchives.org/records/local_government/)

## Pricing

- Small city: $110 per month, up to 10 departments
- City or county: $250 per month, up to 40 departments
- Regional agency: $460 per month, unlimited departments

## Questions

### What is a records retention schedule?

A records retention schedule is the legal instrument that lists each series of records an organisation creates, the minimum period each must be kept, and when it may be destroyed. For a city it is issued or approved by the state archives or a state records committee, and it sets a floor: you may keep records longer, never less.

### Who decides how long a city must keep a record?

The state, in almost every case, through a records commission or state archives that issues local government schedules. Federal law adds its own periods on top, such as the 22 month retention of records relating to a federal election. Local policy can extend a period but cannot shorten one.

### What is a trigger event in records retention?

The event that starts the retention clock. Very few series are simply kept for a fixed number of years from creation. Most read as contract closed plus 4 years, employee separated plus 6, structure demolished plus the life of the building. Without the event recorded, the eligibility date cannot be calculated at all.

### What happens if we destroy a record too early?

At best an audit finding, at worst spoliation in litigation and a statutory violation, depending on the state. That risk is why most cities quietly keep everything, which creates a different problem: 30 years of boxes and an open records request that has to search all of them.

### Does this store the records themselves?

No. Documents stay in your document system, your shares or your physical storage. This holds the schedule, the series, the trigger events, the holds and the approvals, and tells you what is eligible and where it is.

## Sources

- [National Archives, records control schedules](https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/rcs)
- [Texas State Library and Archives Commission, local retention schedules](https://www.tsl.texas.gov/slrm/localretention)
- [New York State Archives, retention schedules](https://www.archives.nysed.gov/records/retention-schedules)
- [International Institute of Municipal Clerks](https://www.iimc.com/)

## Contact

- office@neurobird.com
- https://neurobird.com/