NCAI is accepting late resolutions only if they are emergency in nature and national in scope, and they must be received by Tuesday, October 20, at 12 p.m. Pacific (3 p.m. Eastern). Only NCAI individual Indian members in good standing may submit, using NCAI’s 2026 template through its online portal. Could an NCAI member, working with their Tribe, ask NCAI to urge Interior and NARA to protect these records?
A preliminary draft ILPC comparison of the proposed schedule and the available 2005 schedule reviews 164 record types. It finds 101 proposed for temporary treatment. Of those, 23 are expressly permanent under the available 2005 schedule, 59 appear permanent based on “P” file codes, 17 have current policies the guide could not verify, and two have code or title conflicts. These are counts of record types, not files or volumes. The proposal would assign permanent treatment to 63 types.
The proposed temporary categories include:
- Program records, including forestry and timber reports, American Indian Records Repository research and access files, and routine operations of educational facilities. Proposed destruction is 15 to 25 years after cutoff.
- Long-term trust records, including 48 types. They could become eligible for destruction after 50 years, with reassessment every 10 years and approval by two records officers.
- Contracts, grants, and financial monitoring, including self-determination construction contracts, Tribal attorney contracts, self-governance grants, invoices, and debt collection. Proposed destruction is 12 years after cutoff.
- Human services and legal records, including adoption records, ICWA grant review files, child assistance and abuse reports, court and adoption agency case files, legal activity reports, and Court of Indian Appeals case files. These could become eligible after 50 years, with reassessment every 10 years.
- Audits and investigations, including murder, suicide, and illicit substance case files; Internal Affairs investigations; and external, GAO, gaming, and education audits. These could become eligible after 50 years, with later reviews and additional approvals.
These records can document what the federal government held, knew, decided, and did. Trust accounting records may support account reconstruction, audits, and claims. Adoption, child welfare, contract, education, law enforcement, and investigation records can preserve evidence about government actions affecting Tribal governments and Native people. If no complete copy survives, a record may be unavailable when a Tribe later needs it.
Federal law imposes specific trust accounting and audit duties, but no general retention period for every record series. A series-by-series analysis is needed to explain how the proposed periods account for the duties and evidence those records serve.
A resolution could ask NCAI to urge Interior not to implement the proposed schedule or destroy records under it, and NARA to defer approval until Tribes receive and can review the missing crosswalk and inventories. It could also call for retention periods tied to specific legal and accounting duties, with safeguards for records subject to legal holds or connected to unresolved trust accounts, audits, administrative matters, or pending claims.
To submit an emergency resolution, download the NCAI 2026 template and submit through the emergency resolutions portal. Membership questions go to [email protected]; resolution submission problems go to [email protected].
Indian Affairs consultation and comments
Online consultations are scheduled for October 26–29. Register here. Written comments are due November 30, 2026, at [email protected].
This consultation is separate from NARA’s planned closure of its Chicago and San Francisco facilities. The Indian Affairs schedule would determine whether records are kept or destroyed. The NARA closures concern where archival records are relocated and how researchers can access them. NARA held Tribal listening sessions on the closures on October 13 and 15.
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