Augusta County Clerk no longer processing passports — here's why

STAUNTON - The Augusta County Circuit Court Clerk's Office ceased processing passport applications Sept. 1, citing an inability to keep up with the workload in addition to its other duties.

The Code of Virginia assigns the office over 800 responsibilities and passport services are not among them — that's a federal service, said Carol Brydge, the circuit court clerk.

"For years my predecessor and I always said if we had to cut one service to the public due to the lack of adequate staffing, it would be passports," said Brydge, who became clerk at the start of 2015. "That day has now come."

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The office processed passport applications for over 20 years and in that time there was a "steady increase" each year in the number of passport applicants. The volume increased even more recently with the Waynesboro Circuit Court Clerk’s Office ceasing to provide the service in April, Brydge said, as that shifted demand to her office from some Waynesboro residents, as well people from Charlottesville and Albemarle County (neither of which were ever passport agents).

Here are the office's number of passport applicants in recent years:

2013 – 450

2014 – 453

2015 – 603

2016 – 662

2017 – 1000 (projected based on first 8 months of 2017)

Providing passport services requires the office's deputy clerks to take annual certification tests that are time-consuming and there's even less time for the staff since the circuit court received a second sitting judge at the start of 2017, increasing the number and speed of cases processed, Brydge said. Based on her office's workload, the Virginia Compensation Board indicates the office is short three full-time staff members, she said.

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"We literally do not have enough staff to assist with passport applicants," she said. "Unfortunately, there is no funding available to fulfill our needs."

Brydge said she wanted to make sure Augusta citizens "would not suffer" due to the decision and so she touched base with the county administration as well as the board of supervisors with the hope that another county department at the government center could potentially take on this service. But, as was the case with her office, staff time to handle a high volume of passport applications is tough to come by, which is why the Augusta County Libraries couldn't take it on either.

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"It’s not a black and white explanation," Brydge said. "The decision to stop acting as a passport agency was not taken lightly."

Here are some other local facilities that do provide passport services, per Brydge: