https://davidforgeorgia.com/ A plain-English guide to the documents the State of Georgia publishes about itself: records requests, meeting rules, budget and spending files, archives, court filings and the offices behind them. en-us Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/budget-documents/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/budget-documents/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Budget instructions, a Budget in Brief, a performance measures report, a tax expenditure report and fiscal notes, all labelled with Georgia’s AFY and FY notation. https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/department-of-audits/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/department-of-audits/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT An audit office that states its purpose as independent, unbiased information, publishes named oversight reports, and runs two public dashboards plus the Open Georgia gateway. https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/department-of-revenue/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/department-of-revenue/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Tax administration, motor vehicle tags and titles, alcohol and tobacco enforcement, local government property tax work and unclaimed property, behind two named online systems. https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/ephemera-preserves/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/ephemera-preserves/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Official files capture acts and decisions; the working life around them survives in programmes, session sheets and itineraries nobody was required to keep. How researchers fill that silence. https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/executive-action/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/executive-action/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Executive orders, signed legislation, appointments and proclamations sit together under one Executive Action heading, next to constituent services and a press archive. https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/georgia-archives/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/georgia-archives/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Collecting since 1918, attached to the University System of Georgia, open Tuesday to Saturday in Morrow, with Virtual Vault, Finding Aids, the GIL catalog and an Ask an Archivist form. https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/open-georgia/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/open-georgia/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Salaries and travel, expenditures, financial reports, performance reviews and tax information, gathered on one annually updated gateway run by the Department of Audits and Accounts. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/open-meetings/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/open-meetings/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A written notice posted twenty-four hours ahead, a majority vote of a quorum to close a meeting, a misdemeanour and a $500 fine for doing it knowingly, and ninety days to sue. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/open-records-requests/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/open-records-requests/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Three business days, oral or written, and a statute number when a record is withheld: what the Attorney General’s open government guidance says a Georgia agency must do. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/property-and-court-filings/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/property-and-court-filings/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT The Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority runs the shared public search, a filing alert service called FANS, a Map Search app and a paid Premium Search tier. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/recorded-covenant/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/recorded-covenant/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A protective covenant recorded in a county’s property books can bind a neighborhood for a century. What such a document is, how long it lasts and where to read a working example. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/rule-back-to-document/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/rule-back-to-document/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A printed rule is the last link of a document chain: proposal, annual framework, adoption, publication. How to walk that chain backwards until you reach the paper that made the rule. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/sanitation-ordinances/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/sanitation-ordinances/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Set-out times, bin rules and sanitation tickets are municipal documents, not state ones: where a city publishes them, who enforces them and how a resident reads them. https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/school-system-financials/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/school-system-financials/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT School money surfaces in three places at once: a dedicated dashboard, the audit office’s oversight reports, and the salaries file on Open Georgia that covers boards of education. https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/state-portal/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/state-portal/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT One flat index, a short list of most-used services and a rotating front page: the statewide portal is a routing layer, not a records system, and knowing that saves a detour. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/vital-records/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/vital-records/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Vital Records at the Georgia Department of Public Health registers, preserves, amends and certifies Georgia vital events, and takes orders online through listed vendors or by mail. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/what-a-request-costs/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/what-a-request-costs/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Twenty-five cents a page, the first fifteen minutes free, an hourly rate capped at the lowest paid qualified employee, and prepayment only above a $500 estimate.