Last month’s closure of the Cullman County revenue department’s two satellite offices is proving to be a short-lived move. When new satellites reopen in the coming weeks, however, there will be a few changes — changes implemented to simultaneously expand the revenue and probate offices’ service area while saving the county money.

Revenue commissioner Barry Willingham has already secured agreements with leaders in Hanceville and Dodge City to open satellite offices — rent and utility free — in those municipalities’ town halls. A third satellite on the county’s east side will also provide rent-free space at either Fairview or Baileyton. Willingham said details of the east side location are still being finalized and should be announced in the next few days.

According to Willingham, opening satellites in the three chosen locations provides extended revenue office coverage in areas that, according to a study of county residents’ usage patterns, have the highest concentration of customers who’ve historically done their transactions at satellite offices in the past.

Outside the City of Cullman, the county’s population is most heavily concentrated on its south and east sides, so locating the three satellite offices in municipalities that lie in the southern and eastern portions of the county simply reflects existing demographic trends, noted Willingham.

Probate Judge Leah Patterson Lust, whose satellite office services ended when the Dodge City and Baileyton locations were closed in early May, said Monday she hopes the new satellite offices can function not only as extensions of the revenue department’s services, but as multipurpose courthouse annex locations that, of course, will house probate services as well.

“The satellite offices, ideally, should be considered annexes of the Cullman County Courthouse and not really just of one department,” said Lust. “If we’re going to offer services out in the county, we should get together and try to really provide those services at a level that a true courthouse annex should be able to provide.

“Right now, I’m working on putting together a budget of what it would cost to have an additional driver’s license renewal area at Dodge City. A lot of people come from Jefferson County to the Cullman County Courthouse to get their driver’s licenses renewed. And, of course, it would also be a benefit to local customers from Cold Springs and Bremen and Good Hope, and for folks who live on the lake.”

Lust said that, while opening satellite offices — or, for that matter, closing them — is a responsibility to be shared by the probate office, the revenue office and the county commission, getting all the parties to communicate before taking unified action hasn’t been easy.

“It’s my sincere desire to have probate services back in the county, and I’ve been working with the leadership at Dodge City and at Baileyton to ensure that we can do that,” she said. “I was elected to run the probate office, and Barry Willingham does not speak for the probate office. All of these offices are funded out of the Cullman County general fund, and the general fund has been assigning that money to the revenue department’s budget, and that’s how it’s been paid out. But really, the satellites should all be set up as a Cullman County Courthouse annex, and that’s how they should be run.”

Hanceville mayor Kenneth Nail has already vacated his office space at the Hanceville city hall to make room for a revenue department employee. Lust said she wants to re-establish probate services at Baileyton and Dodge City before assaying whether to provide a part-time employee at Hanceville or any other new location.

With parking already tight at the courthouse, most employees on the first floor — which hosts both revenue and probate services — agree that extending service into the county will alleviate both auto and foot traffic at the courthouse, especially at the end of the month when hordes of last-minute customers keep clerks at every transaction window scrambling to keep pace.

Through Friday, the revenue office had processed 10,652 transactions for the month of May. By day’s end Tuesday, the month’s last and busiest day, the office had added about 13 percent of the entire month’s business — or 1,536 transactions done in a single day — to that total.

Probate statistics for May were not available by deadline for this article, but total probate transactions for the month of April — including marriages, boating and fishing licenses, business licenses and land instruments — tallied 1,931. That figure, however, doesn’t included the high volume of driver’s license renewals the probate office handles monthly.

Willingham, whom the county commission authorized at its last regular meeting to negotiate with building owners and municipal leaders to secure the new satellite office space, said the three soon-to-open offices will cost the county less money than the two spaces that closed last month.

“You’re looking at a T1 [Internet] connection at each location, and a fax line, and personnel to staff the office, and that’s pretty much what the county has to pay,” he said. “The leases and the utilities are free; I’ve told everyone I’ve dealt with that that’s the only way we can responsibly afford to do it. It’s not been popular to close and rework these offices, and I’ve taken the hit for most of that. But I’ve got to look at how we can be responsible with the county’s money. I can’t justify paying for space when someone else can offer it to us for free.”



* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.