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Now, after five years of work, one of the less sexy functions of state government has become more efficient. Parents can fill out a digital form, pay with a credit card and receive the birth certificate in about two days. The process for obtaining a marriage license and certificates for death or divorce are faster and conducted online.

TheÌýstate sends the records to the federal government, which uses the troves of data to make policy decisions. For years, Virginia's system for collecting and reporting data was so poor, the federal government put the state on a performance improvement plan.

Now, Virginia has one of the top systems in the country, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Monday when the state's Ìýcut the ribbon on a new facility at 8701 Park Central DriveÌýin northern Henrico that opens to the public Tuesday.

Before Virginia's technological upgrade, it took 55 days to amend a record, such as adding a father to a birth certificate. The work of creating and updating records can be onerous. Nearly 100,000 babies are born in Virginia every year, and each one creates a new record. Requests have spiked in recent years as residents have sought Real ID identifications. During the pandemic, requests sent through the mail arrived in large duffle bags one after another. The staff struggled to respond to customer requests in a timely manner and report data to the federal government.

After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention receive data from across the country, federal officials use it to make policy decisions, such as how to help Black women, who are more likely to suffer adverse conditions during childbirth.

"Our health data wasn't very good," Youngkin said.

When the pandemic hit, the staff realized it needed to upgrade its service. Its average review on Google was just two stars out of five, a sign that its processes were lacking.

The office developed online portals, changed its workflow and sped up response times. What once took 55 days to amend a record now takes one, said Seth Austin, the state registrar and the office's director.

The public responded, and now about eight in 10 record requests are made online. The office's physical location is open to the public for residents who want to make a request in person.

The office's record management is now rated among the best in the country, said Youngkin, who has sought to improve all kinds of record keeping, including driver's licenses at the Department of Motor Vehicles and air and water permits from the Department of Environmental Quality.

The Office of Vital Records improved its Google rating to 4.4 stars and is still climbing. Its staffers try to keep in mind that the troves of data are more than just sheets of paper and lines on a screen.

"Every single record is a person," Youngkin said.

Last week, the 77-person staff moved from its old location on Maywill Street, in western Henrico, to an office space the state is leasing in northern Henrico.

The state also moved its vaultÌý— a room that stores more than 10,000 books and an estimated 30 million records, including every birth certificate on file for the past 100 years. Once a record reaches a certain age, it is shipped to the Library of Virginia, where it is stored in perpetuity.

The office moved the books in a box truck escorted by the Virginia State Police. The truck needed 17 trips between the old office and the new.

The state has digitized every record dating back to 1960, but it also maintains a hard copy. In the event of a cybersecurity incident, the hard copies can serve as a backup to the digital records. In the event of a fire, the online records would back up the rows of books.

Each time a resident requests amending a record, an employee in the vault finds the correct row, shelf and book containing the certificate or license. With a pen, the employee strikes out the old information and writes the new.

For residents who want to make a request in person, the new office opens to the public Tuesday.