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/offices/church-archive-from-far-away/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/church-archive-from-far-away/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A church’s archive documents presence the way a government file does: appointments, correspondence, buildings and membership; distance changes the access, not the method. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/county-file-rural-parcel/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/county-file-rural-parcel/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Recorded plats, easements, road maintenance agreements and well or septic permits live in different county offices; this page says which file holds which answer. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/crash-map-before-you-ride/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/crash-map-before-you-ride/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Georgia publishes crash data and road inventories that say where cyclists are actually being struck; this page says which datasets describe a commute and how to read them without alarm. 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/records/discography-kept-as-ledger/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/discography-kept-as-ledger/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A session-by-session record of who played, where and when is the same kind of document as a public register: dated entries that can be checked against each other. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/document-before-you-sign/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/document-before-you-sign/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A contract or deed is a record before it is a promise; this page walks through the parts to read first and what recording does to a document afterward. 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/offices/keeping-copies-portal-files/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/keeping-copies-portal-files/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Documents pulled from state and county portals change or vanish when sites are rebuilt; this page sets out how to keep, date and verify your own copies. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/license-file-mail-order-nursery/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/license-file-mail-order-nursery/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Nurseries that ship plants are licensed and inspected businesses; this page says which records exist, who keeps them and what the file reveals before you order. 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/parish-register-vs-civil-record/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/parish-register-vs-civil-record/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Church registers of baptisms, marriages and burials predate the state’s vital records and follow their own calendar; this page says what each record proves and where each is kept. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/permit-file-on-a-venue/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/permit-file-on-a-venue/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A music venue leaves a public file of licenses, permits and inspections; this page says which offices keep which records and what the file reveals about the room. https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/plat-before-landscape-plan/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/records/plat-before-landscape-plan/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Easements, setbacks and drainage lines are recorded on the plat long before a landscaper draws; this page says which recorded documents decide what a yard may hold. https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/printed-records-workplace-keeps/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/money/printed-records-workplace-keeps/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Time cards, badge logs and payroll registers are the paper behind every paycheck; retention schedules say how long they must survive and who may read them. 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/offices/public-figure-own-papers/ https://davidforgeorgia.com/offices/public-figure-own-papers/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Speeches, letters and drafts are the primary record of what a public man said; this page sets out what the papers can prove and where a reader finds the texts. 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.