The Georgia Archives starting Nov. 1 will accept public appointments into its vast collection only six days a month — including two Saturdays out of a typical month’s four — according to a plan released Monday by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
Kemp said the plan satisfies what he is required to do under the law, which mandates state records and facilities be available every Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. as is “ordinarily available to the public during regular office hours on weekdays.”
In other words, the new plan keeps Saturday hours during each of two weeks the archive is open. Researchers and others are out of luck, however, for the rest of the month.
Supporters of the state archives are now doubly outraged over Kemp’s decision to make it bear the brunt of a proposed budget cut to his office, which other agencies also are facing.
“I don’t understand how that’s going to work,” Dianne Cannestra, president of the Friends of Georgia Archives and History, said of the new schedule.
“We are continuing to talk with an attorney,” Cannestra said, about whether Kemp is violating state law, which requires documents and other state records to be open for personal inspection at a reasonable time and place.
According to the new schedule, the archives will be open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the first two weeks of every month. Appointments will be limited to two or two-and-a-half hours. They will be tracked through three general areas: documents research; microfilm reference; and general reference.
Kemp said the plan allows the archives to accommodate 288 visitors a month, close to what it serves now under an already reduced schedule. Georgia’s archives already offered the fewest hours in the nation. Once open more than 40 hours a week, the institution, located in Morrow, has been getting by with 17 a week since last year.
The new schedule increases that to 21 hours a week for the first two weeks of the month. But, under the plan, the archives will close in full for the third and fourth weeks each month. In addition, seven of the archives’ 10 full-time staff members are being laid off.
Kemp said under the new schedule, the state is providing the same level of access to the archives’ records and facility on Saturdays that is also provided during regular weekdays.
“The good news is it looks like we’re going to be able to serve 97 percent of the people who come to the archives now,” Kemp said. “I know the governor is working hard to find a way to do something. We’re willing to do whatever we can.”
The archives move saves Kemp the bulk of more than $730,000, enough to satisfy a proposed cut in his office budget. Gov. Nathan Deal has asked most state agencies to trim their budgets by 3 percent next year.
Deal has said he wants to find a way to keep the archives open. That won’t happen, however, until budget changes for the current fiscal year go before state lawmakers starting in January.
Until then, archives supporters are left with bittersweet reminders about how important the archive is. Such a reminder came Monday, when Deal on behalf of the state accepted the donation of a ceremonial sword originally commissioned by the Georgia Legislature in 1814.
Donors privately raised $100,000 to purchase the sword, which was spotted for sale in a magazine by none other than the staff of the Georgia Archives.
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