BTFA - Digital Center of Excellence (DCE)

Under OBM/NARA M-19-21, BTFA is required to manage all permanent records in electronic format after December 31, 2022. However, The National Archives and Records Administration has not published the agency guidance for digitization standards of permanent records that would allow for the transfer of the official records status from the source records to the electronic version. Due to this the paper version of the record must be maintained and both versions of the record will be kept indefinitely until that guidance is published. This prevents the calculation of quantitative cost savings to the government. However, during the COVID pandemic the cost of underutilized resources in 2 qtr. 2020, FY 2021, and through the 2 qtr. FY 2022 was 1.8M per year for staff and 4M for facilities and storage of paper records that was spent due to a lack of continuance of operations in the paper records. With the extended timelines that facilities, like the Federal Records Center in Lenexa KS. or the American Indian Records Repository had to remain closed, the government will likely see, multiple requirements to respond to discovery from the courts. The labor intensive process of searching paper records will result in increased settlements as BTFA is unable to respond in a timely manner as directed by the courts. Once DCE digitizes paper documents, these records will be accessible at any time or place allowing for decreased storage costs of servicing the paper records in the future but allows for the continuance of operations using BTFA records and timely responses to the courts for discovery requests.

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