DeKalb County residents may soon be able to obtain a duplicate title, renew drivers licenses, and get a photo ID at the county complex
County Clerk Mike Clayborn, during Monday night’s county commission meeting, said he has been working for two years trying to obtain a contract with the state to be able to print duplicate titles in his office. Last week, state officials contacted Clayborn saying they were now prepared to offer a contract for this service. Clayborn said his office may also have the opportunity to produce new titles at some point in the future. “They wanted to include in my contract that I would do new titles, which incurs a whole lot more paperwork. I told them to go ahead and include it because I don’t have to just automatically go into doing them. We can kind of feel our way through the duplicates, learn how to do them and then step up (to the new titles). But when we step up, its going to require more people. I’ll need your (county commission) backing to do that. With the duplicates, we can handle that with what we’ve got (staff). But if we decide we want to do new titles, you’ve got to consider that you’ll have individuals coming in. I don’t know how many a day we’ll do, but it’ll be several. Then you have all your dealerships and they might bring in a week’s work in one day. In other words, if you come in and do your title work, in three days you’ll have a title instead of waiting two weeks. We don’t have to go right into it. Its not something we’ve got to do in the next six months, or next year, or the next two years,” he said.
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Clayborn said the service of printing duplicate titles could be available in the county clerk’s office by the first of the year.
Meanwhile, both Clayborn and County Mayor Mike Foster said that the county has reached an agreement with the Tennessee Department of Safety to set up a self serve Kiosk in the county complex for driver license renewal and to produce photo ID’s. “All you’ve got to do is go in with a credit card. You’ll put in your information. You’ll swipe your card. It’ll give you a receipt and they’ll send you a renewal on your driver’s license and make you a Tennessee ID,” said Clayborn.
“It’ll save you from having to drive to McMinnville or Cookeville to get a drivers license renewal or to go and get a photo ID,” said Foster. “We’ve already signed a contract with them so that’s a done deal. For those of you who go through airports a lot, a kiosk will be there. You punch in the numbers and the machine talks to you. It tells you what you need to do. It takes a picture and then gives you a temporary drivers license and when they check all the details, then they send you the license,” said Foster.
The kiosks will be connected to the Tennessee Department of Safety’s mainframe computer and will use face recognition software, comparing old drivers’ license photos with the person standing in front of kiosk to insure the correct person is getting the new license.
Licenses and ID cards will not be printed at the kiosk due to security reasons.
Instead, a temporary driver’s license will be printed in the form of a receipt, complete with a photo. The receipt will be valid for two weeks.
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