Contact Information
Vermont State Archives & Records Administration
1078 Route 2, Middlesex
Montpelier, VT 05633-7701
Phone & Hours
Main Line: 802-828-3700
Fax: 802-828-3710
Office Hours: 7:45 AM to 4:30 PM, M-F
Reference Room: 9 AM to 4 PM, M-F
VSARA > Manage > Information Governance > Standards > VCLAS > Record Types
Public employees create, receive, and manage thousands of distinct records. A typical State court, for example, is responsible for filing and controlling more than 500 different records that are created or received through court proceedings. At the core of every record, however, is a general record type. For instance, the Department of Health's "Asbestos Contractor Entity Application Form" and the Department of Financial Regulation's "Debt Adjuster Application" are both applications even though they support different activities and domains.
Note about Record Types: Record types are identified and defined by the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration (VSARA) through the records appraisal and scheduling process. The list below is not a comprehensive list of record types and only includes record types that have been approved for use on record schedules. Agencies should refer to their record schedules for record type metadata assigned specifically to them, their business functions and their records.
| Authorized Term | Definition | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts (Lists) | This record type is reserved for precise lists or enumerations of financial transactions including, but not limited to, statements summarizing transactions related to credits, debits, accruals, and adjustments that have occurred. | 1 |
| Accounts (Statements) | This record type is reserved for recorded narratives or summaries of events. See "Declarations" for formal statements. | 138 |
| Acknowledgments | This record type is reserved for formal declarations made to authoritative witnesses to ensure legal validity. | 109 |
| Acts | This record type is reserved for laws passed by a legislative body. | 184 |
| Advertisements | This record type is reserved for notices, such as posters or paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media, designed to attract public attention or patronage. | 112 |
| Affidavits | This record type is reserved for written declarations made under oath before a notary public or other authorized officer. | 3 |
| Agendas | This record type is reserved for documents, often in list form, stating things to be done, as items of business or discussions to be brought up at a meeting. | 4 |
| Agreements | This record type is reserved for written arrangements between parties regarding a course of action. | 5 |
| Announcements | This record type is reserved for public notices, statements and warnings used to communicate knowledge of certain facts or of a particular state of affairs. | 6 |
| Answers | This record type is reserved for formal written statements admitting or denying the allegations in complaints. Usually the first responsive pleading filed by the defendant in an administrative or civil action. | 7 |
| Applications | This record type is reserved for documents, usually forms, used by persons requesting assistance, authorization, employment, admission, or other action. | 8 |
| Appraisals | This record type is reserved for printed or written statements of evaluation or estimate of the market or other value, cost, utility or other attribute of land, buildings, works of art, or other objects of property, by qualified persons. | 9 |
| Articles of dissolution | This record type is reserved for documents that must be filed with an appropriate government agency, commonly the office of the secretary of state, prior to dissolution of a partnership or corporation outlining the provisions for the distribution of assets. | 180 |
| Articles of incorporation | This record type is reserved for documents that must be filed with an appropriate government agency, commonly the office of the secretary of state, if the owners of a business want it to be given legal recognition as a partnership or corporation. | 179 |
| Assessments | This record type is reserved for written statements used to declare an amount determined as payable, including official valuations of property for the purpose of levying a tax. | 182 |
| Audits | This record type is reserved for final reports following formal examinations of accounts. | 10 |
| Authorizations | This record type is reserved for written documents describing written permissions from an authoritative body allowing recipients to gain certain rights or privileges or perform specific activities. | 141 |
| Ballots | This record type is reserved for sheets of paper or other devices used to cast a secret vote. | 129 |
| Bids | This record type is reserved for written offers or proposals to sell goods or services for a stated price. | 149 |
| Bills | This record type is reserved for drafts of proposed laws introduced in a legislative body. | 11 |
| Blanks | This record type is reserved for forms having no marks; not written or printed on; not filled in, as a printed form. | 187 |
| Bonds | This record type is reserved for certificates of debt issued by a government or corporation guaranteeing payment of the original investment plus interest by a specified future date. | 14 |
| Briefs (legal documents) | This record type is reserved for concise statements of the arguments of a party to a case in dispute, submitted to the court or other body hearing the case. | 16 |
| Budgets | This record type is reserved for itemized summaries of estimated or intended expenditures for a given period along with proposals for financing them. | 17 |
| Calendars | This record type is reserved for schedules of events or ordered lists of matters to be considered. | 19 |
| Case files | Case files (which includes project files) is not a record type in itself. All record types within a case file should be inventoried to determine their specific legal and administrative requirements. | 20 |
| Certificates | This record type is reserved for written documents that is official verification that a condition or requirement has, or has not, been met. | 21 |
| Charters | This record type is reserved for documents granting specific rights, setting forth aims and principles of a newly established entity, and often embodying formal agreements and authorizing special privileges or exemptions. | 106 |
| Checklists | This record type is reserved for lists in which items can be compared, scheduled, verified, or identified. | 22 |
| Claims | This record type is reserved for written demands or assertions of rights and/or ownership made by an individual or entity. | 170 |
| Complaints | This record type is reserved for written expressions of dissatisfaction. Includes grievances and formal pleadings that initiate administrative or civil actions or, in criminal law, pleadings that set forth the basis upon which a person is charged with an offense. | 24 |
| Contracts | This record type is reserved for agreements backed by lawful consideration to carry out actions, exchange assets, or refrain from doing things. | 26 |
| Conveyances | This record type is reserved for written instruments that transfers some ownership interest in property from one person to another. | 27 |
| Correspondence (Routine) | This record type is reserved for routine or general recorded communication concerning day-to-day agency activities, including routine correspondence with other agencies or the public. Also see: Correspondence (Substantive). | 28 |
| Correspondence (Substantive) | This record type is reserved for correspondence that has significant administrative value and/or is essential to supporting a final decision. Includes executive-level correspondence concerning agency policies and procedures. Also see: Correspondence (Routine). | 53 |
| Decisions | This record type is reserved for written conclusions reached after an evaluation of facts and law. | 133 |
| Declarations | This record type is reserved for formal statements intended to create, preserve, assert, or testify to a right or document a fact. | 32 |
| Deeds | This record type is reserved for written documents that are signed and delivered by which one person conveys property to another. | 142 |
| Deposit, Certificates of | This record type is reserved for receipts from a bank certifying that a specified sum of money has been received for deposit, often for a specified length of time and at specified rates of interest. | 34 |
| Depositions | This record type is reserved for testimonies of witnesses, under oath or affirmation, before a person empowered to administer oaths. | 107 |
| Directories | This record type is reserved for enumerations of names, addresses, and other data about specific groups of persons or organizations; may appear in alphabetic or graphic format. | 25 |
| Discovery | This record type is reserved for material information obtained by the use of methods such as depositions, interrogatories, requests for the production and inspection of writings and other materials, requests for admission of facts, and physical examination. | 174 |
| Dockets | This record type is reserved for calendars of proceedings and/or abstracts or listings of all actions and pleadings filed pursuant to a judicial, quasi-judicial, and administrative proceeding. | 117 |
| Drafts | This record type is reserved for preliminary or tentative versions of documents. | 37 |
| Evidence | This record type is reserved for documentary information gathered as part of an investigation or presented at a judicial, quasi-judicial, and administrative proceeding for the purpose of establishing the truth or falsity of an allegation of fact. Also see "Exhibits." | 136 |
| Examinations (documents) | This record type is reserved for written questions or exercises testing knowledge, aptitude, or skills. | 38 |
| Executive Orders | This record type is reserved for directions or commands delivered by the Chief Executive and entered into the record. | 185 |
| Exhibits | This record type is reserved for documents produced and exhibited as proof of facts, or as otherwise connected with the subject matter, and which, on being accepted, is marked for identification and considered part of the case file. Also see "Evidence." | 40 |
| Grants | This record type is reserved for awards of financial assistance from a Federal or State agency to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law. Includes cost reimbursement contracts and similar agreements with the granting agency. | 173 |
| Guidelines | This record type is reserved for statements or other indications of policy or procedure by which to determine a course of action. | 44 |
| Histories | This record type is reserved for documents illustrating a chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people, country, or institution. | 45 |
| Indexes | This record type is reserved for lists, usually in alphabetical order, of persons and/or subjects referred to in documents, with location of references thereto. | 47 |
| Inventories | This record type is reserved for detailed lists of things in one's view or possession, as of all goods and materials on hand, or detailed lists of all items in a given category. For documentation of examination conducted to achieve a comprehensive view, see "surveys." | 48 |
| Invoices | This record type is reserved for documents showing items supplied, together with the prices charged for each; also, itemized bills or accounts. | 49 |
| Laws | This record type is reserved for a body of rules of conduct of binding legal force and effect, prescribed, recognized, and enforced by controlling authority. | 140 |
| Leases | This record type is reserved for contracts granting use or occupation of property during a specified period in exchange for a specified rent. | 143 |
| Ledgers | This record type is reserved for principal book of accounts of a business enterprise in which all the daily transactions are entered under appropriate headings to reflect the debits and credits of each account. | 175 |
| Licenses | This record type is reserved for documents evidencing a right or permission, granted to an individual or organization in accordance with law by a competent authority, to engage in some transaction, business, or occupation, or to do some act. | 54 |
| Lists | This record type is reserved for a series of names, words, or other items written, printed, or imagined one after the other. | 55 |
| Logs | This record type is reserved for records documenting the performance of an object or the use of an object, often for internal control purposes. | 145 |
| Maps | This record type is reserved for graphic representations, drawn to scale and usually on a flat surface, of features, usually geographic, geologic, or geopolitical, of an area of the Earth or of any celestial body. | 57 |
| Marks | This record type is reserved for inscriptions, names, stamps, labels, seals, symbols and other devices used to signify ownership, quality, manufacture, or origin. | 181 |
| Memoranda | This record type is reserved for documents recording information used for internal communication. | 58 |
| Minutes | This record type is reserved for notes recounting the transactions occurring at a meeting or official proceeding. | 59 |
| Notes | This record type is reserved for brief statements of a fact or experience, written down for review, or as an aid to memory, or to inform someone else; also includes short, informal letters. | 60 |
| Notices, Legal | This record type is reserved for formal announcements, notifications, or warnings that are required by law. | 50 |
| Oaths | This record type is reserved for any type of attestation by which an individual signifies that he or she is bound in conscience to perform a particular act truthfully and faithfully; a solemn declaration of truth or obligation. | 108 |
| Opinions | This record type is reserved for formal expressions of the opinion formed by some superior authority on matters referred to its decision and forwarded to inferior authorities for their instruction and government. | 62 |
| Orders | This record type is reserved for directions or commands delivered by a court or other adjudicative body and entered into the record but not necessarily included in the final decision or verdict. | 63 |
| Permits | This record type is reserved for documents which grant a person the right to do something not forbidden by law but not allowable without such authority. | 66 |
| Petitions | This record type is reserved for formal written applications made to a court or administrative body requesting action on certain matters. | 67 |
| Plans (drawings) | This record type is reserved for drawings or diagrams, often made to scale, showing the structure or arrangement of something. | 68 |
| Plans (reports) | This record type is reserved for reports describing a proposed or tentative project or course of action. | 69 |
| Plats | This record type is reserved for maps, plans, or charts of a city, town, section, subdivision, or other specific land area, indicating the location and boundaries of individual properties. | 146 |
| Pleadings | This record type is reserved for written statements of claims and defenses made by parties in a judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative proceeding. | 126 |
| Policies | This record type is reserved for written plans, courses of action, or guiding principles intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, and other matters. | 70 |
| Presentations | This record type is reserved for spoken or visual representations of information, such as speeches, demonstrations, and slide shows, set forth for an audience. | 71 |
| Press releases | This record type is reserved for official or authoritative statements distributed to the press. | 72 |
| Procedures | This record type is reserved for sets of instructions or steps necessary to perform a specific task. | 73 |
| Proclamations | This record type is reserved for documents that are publicly announced or officially declared; especially a public notice by an official of some order, intended action, or state of facts. | 110 |
| Proposals | This record type is reserved for plans put forward for consideration. | 154 |
| Publications | This record type is reserved for printed material offered for sale or distribution. | 74 |
| Purchase orders | This record type is reserved for documents authorizing a vendor to deliver materials or equipment, or to perform services, which upon acceptance constitutes a purchase contract. | 75 |
| Questionnaires | This record type is reserved for documents containing a set of questions for submission to a number of persons in order to obtain statistically useful information. Use "surveys" for documentation of inspections conducted to achieve a comprehensive view. | 76 |
| Receipts | This record type is reserved for written acknowledgment of the receiving or taking of goods or money delivered or paid. | 77 |
| Record schedules | This record type is reserved for documents describing the recurring records of an organization or administrative unit, specifying those records to be preserved as having archival value, and authorizing, on a continuing basis and after the lapse of specified retention periods and the occurrence of specified actions or events, the destruction of the remaining records. | 79 |
| Reference sources | This record type is reserved for sources intended primarily for consultation rather than for consecutive reading. | 80 |
| Referrals | This record type is reserved for written recommendations submitted to an authority or professional group or person for arbitration, decision, or examination. | 153 |
| Registers | This record type is reserved for official lists of entries of any information considered sufficiently important to be exactly and formally recorded, typically maintained in numerical or chronological order in a regular manner. | 81 |
| Registrations | This record type is reserved for documents that confirm formally an act of registering. | 167 |
| Releases | This record type is reserved for contractual agreements by which one individual assents to relinquish a claim or right under the law to another individual against whom such claim or right is enforceable. | 115 |
| Reports | This record type is reserved official or formal statements of facts or proceedings (courses of action). | 144 |
| Requests | This record type is reserved for written expressions or demands for assistance, services, actions, or acknowledgements. | 139 |
| Requests for proposals | This record type is reserved for documents that formally solicit bids, whether cost-based or otherwise, for services or products of the State. | 83 |
| Requisitions | This record type is reserved for written requests for a particular good or service, typically issued from one department to another. | 84 |
| Returns | This record type is reserved for reports, lists, or sets of statistics, especially those that are formal or official. | 151 |
| Rosters | This record type is reserved for any list of names of persons enrolled or enlisted for a particular purpose, as a list of names of military personnel enrolled for active duty. | 86 |
| Rules | This record type is reserved for established standards, guides, or regulations governing conduct, procedure, or action. | 161 |
| Schedules | This record type is reserved for plans of procedure, showing the sequence of items or operations and the time allotted for each. | 88 |
| Statistics | This record type is reserved for quantitative assessment of an operation, project, program, etc. | 90 |
| Stipulations | This record type is reserved for written terms or conditions put forward as a necessary part of an agreement. Terms within a written contract; also, any set of conditions. | 92 |
| Studies | This record type is reserved for recorded results of diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject made to discover or revise facts, theories, or applications. | 116 |
| Subpoenas | This record type is reserved for commands to give sworn testimony at a specified time and place about a matter concerned in an investigation or a legal proceeding. | 121 |
| Summaries | This record type is reserved for presentations of the substance of a body of material in a condensed form or by reducing it to its main points; an abstract. | 94 |
| Summonses | This record type is reserved for instruments delivered by a sheriff or other appropriate party, notifying a person that a court action has been commenced against the person and that the person is required to appear in court on the day named to answer the complaint. | 95 |
| Supporting material | This record type is reserved for recorded material created or received by an agency to support, supplement, or complement another record, such as an application, agenda, report, etc. | 36 |
| Surveys | This record type is reserved for documentation of examinations or inspections conducted in order to achieve a comprehensive view, as of a place, a group of related items, or to ascertain condition or value. For detailed lists of items on hand, or of items in a given category, use "inventories." For sets of questions submitted to a number of persons to obtain information, see "questionnaires." For land boundary surveys, see "Plats." | 96 |
| Tariffs | This record type is reserved for schedules of prices or fees. | 178 |
| Transcripts | This record type is reserved for copies transcribed from an original text or document and also for written records of words originally spoken, such as of judicial, quasi-judicial, and administrative proceedings, broadcasts, or oral histories. | 99 |
| Verdicts | This record type is reserved for formal decisions or findings made by a jury concerning the questions submitted to it during a trial. | 100 |
| Vouchers | This record type is reserved for documents serving as evidence or proof, specifically, a receipt or statement attesting to the expenditure or receipt of money, usually accompanied by bills or other evidence of indebtedness or expenditure. | 101 |
| Waivers | This record type is reserved for written statements renunciating, abandoning or surrendering some legal claim, right, or privilege. | 150 |
| Warrants | This record type is reserved for documents that serve as an authorization, especially: vouchers authorizing payment or receipt of money; and judicial writs authorizing an officer to make a search, seizure, or arrest or to execute a judgment. | 102 |
| Wills | This record type is reserved for legal instruments in which a person declares the disposition of his/her property, to take effect after his/her death, and which is revocable during the lifetime of that person. | 103 |
| Worksheets | This record type is reserved for documents used in making preliminary plans, auxiliary computations, notes, or comments as a guide in doing some piece of work. | 104 |
| Writs | This record type is reserved for orders in writing, issued under seal (in the name of the sovereign or a court or judicial officer) from the proper authority, commanding the person to whom it is directed to perform or refrain from performing an act specified therein. | 122 |
Vermont State Archives & Records Administration
1078 Route 2, Middlesex
Montpelier, VT 05633-7701
Phone & Hours
Main Line: 802-828-3700
Fax: 802-828-3710
Office Hours: 7:45 AM to 4:30 PM, M-F
Reference Room: 9 AM to 4 PM, M-F
