By Alison James

alison.james@fct.wpengine.com

As was anticipated and tentatively announced in late August, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency has now closed 31 part-time driver’s license offices – including Franklin County’s, located in Russellville.

According to an ALEA press release, the appropriation to ALEA from the state’s General Fund Budget was reduced from $55,758,744 to $44,640,937.

Alabama issues an average of 1.2 million driver licenses each year, according to the release. “Analyzing transactions performed in each location throughout the state revealed the combined efforts of the 31 part-time satellite locations accounted for less than 5 percent of all Alabama Driver License transactions performed by ALEA,” the release stated. “The busiest of these 31 satellite locations performed less than 2,000 transactions during 2014.”

Mary Scofield, Franklin County chief clerk, said Franklin’s County’s office regularly handled only 700-800 transactions in a year, with it’s Tuesday-only schedule.

“That’s just for the new people taking their permit (test) or wanting to go get their license for the first time,” Scofield said.

“After everybody adjusts to it, I don’t see it being that big of a problem at all,” she added, saying she suspects many people were already driing to a full-time office for DMV needs anyway, so as not to have to wait until Tuesday for service.

Drivers can still renew their licenses at the probate office – or online.

“In July, I announced several advancements that will help the Driver License issuance process including online scheduling, online driver license renewals and duplicates, self-serve kiosks, digital licensing for smart phones and statewide equipment upgrades. Since making that announcement, we have had over 40,000 transactions online,” said Secretary of Law Enforcement Spencer Collier. “The impact of the changes due to the budget cuts will be lessened because of the implementation of these technology-based services, including online renewals.”

“We will continue to work on ways to optimize customer convenience with our services,” said Collier. “Probate judges and license or revenue commissioners will continue to provide the same renewal services they have traditionally handled in their facilities. Additionally, statewide equipment upgrades announced in July will allow probate judges and license or revenue commissioners to renew STAR IDs and conduct other services that were previously only performed at Driver License Offices.”

The schedules for ALEA District Driver License Offices are available online at www.alrenewal.com. Additionally, to help citizens who currently use these part-time, satellite locations, ALEA has developed an interactive Citizen Services Locator Map that will identify and locate the closest office and the services it provides.  Citizens can access the Citizens Services Locator Map by visiting www.alrenewal.com. Locally, Sheffield, Hamilton and Decatur are the nearest options.