Local passport services resuming




 

 

Passports are expected to once again be offered at the Pipestone County Courthouse as soon as this month.

Tyler Reisch, Pipestone County auditor and passport program administrator, said the county has been approved as a passport acceptance facility. Reisch will handle most of the passport services, but Sharon Hanson, Pipestone County administrator, Cathy Feste, personnel coordinator, Bill Folger, information technology director, and Evan Prunty, information technology technician, have also completed online training through the U.S. Department of State to provide passport services.

“We’re just seeking what they call final approval,'” Reisch told the Pipestone County Board during its Dec. 27 meeting. “We’ve already been approved. It’s simply just accepting the forms that we mailed.”

Reisch said that final approval is expected by the first or second week of January and the ability to start accepting passport applications will likely follow by the end of the month once necessary equipment is acquired and the office space is set up. The passport office will be located in the basement of the courthouse in one of the offices where PrimeWest Health is located.

The county will provide notice in the Pipestone County Star and on its website at www.pipestone-county.com once the services are officially available at the courthouse.
Passport services will be available by appointment only by calling the Pipestone County Auditor’s Office at 507-825-1140.

The county previously provided passport services through the recorder’s office. That stopped in 2011 when a new State Department policy took effect that prohibited government offices that offer other identification documents, such as driver’s licenses or birth certificates, from issuing passports in order to decrease the risk of fraud. Since then, Pipestone County residents have had to go elsewhere to apply for their passports.

When the county last offered passports through the recorder’s office, it issued over 300 passports a year and received about $5,700 a year from the passport fees that were used to help cover the cost of providing the service.

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