At the driver's license office in Tuscaloosa, a sign was posted that warned customers of potential messes in the restrooms.

The Department of Public Safety license branch in Tuscaloosa has a personnel shortage, and they do not have a custodian, the sign reads.

And that's just the cleanliness of the rest rooms. The sign says nothing of the long lines that some driver's license branches have.

At the Huntsville Department of Public Safety location, the branch workers tell people getting an Alabama driver's license to show up at 5:30 a.m. so workers can get to them by mid-afternoon. The office doesn't open until 8 a.m., so people have to start their wait outside.

The long wait times are just one symptom of the problems faced by the Alabama Department of Public Safety, which issues driver's licenses, keeps troopers on state roads and Marine Police working its waterways. The department has about 1,200 employees.

The driver's license operation receives special mention from Spencer Collier, Gov. Robert Bentley's secretary of law enforcement. Collier flat-out tells AL.com that the Alabama driver's license system, which will issue 1.25 million licenses this year, "isn't working."

Since the state's $1.84 billion General Fund, which funds one-third of the department, is running the risk of going deep into red ink next year, solutions are being weighed to alleviate the long lines without new funding.

The solution, Collier believes, is to find efficiencies in the coming merger of the department with the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Justice Information Center, and eight other enforcement agencies. That merger, creating the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, will happen on Jan. 1.

The solutions could help trooper staffing too. At night, between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., there are eight troopers patrolling statewide.

Anna Morris, spokeswoman for the department, says the last trooper class finished in 2010. The department now has 289 troopers assigned to Highway Patrol, excluding supervisors, which is substantially less than the 871 troopers recommended in a recent study from the University of Alabama's Center for Advanced Public Safety, according to Morris.

And there are fewer people testing drivers, which in turn means shorter hours at bureaus for drivers seeking road tests and exams. Currently, there are 301 total employees in the driver's license division, according to officials. That includes 119 examiners and an additional 20 examiner supervisors.

Since 2007, there has been a loss of 21 examiners statewide -- 17.6 percent of its testers -- and they have not been replaced because of a hiring freeze.

In Huntsville, if you seek to swap an out-of-state license for an Alabama driver's license, the only guarantee for showing up at 5:30 a.m. is that the workers will get to you by 5:30 p.m. later that day.

That's according to Kathleen Smith, 26, a former Florida resident who has been to the Huntsville driver's license offices four times recently to get an Alabama state driver's license. She has been turned away every time, either because her Social Security card was laminated or, because of work commitments, she couldn't wait another two hours -- after waiting about six hours.

The process has gone on so long for Smith that her Florida driver's license has expired. Not to worry, one license branch official told Smith: Alabama allows a 60-day grace period for expired driver's licenses, apparently so backlogged is the state's renewal system.

The wait times are not blamed on new, stricter federal ID standards or Alabama's related Star ID program, which is underway now. The state also does not have a shortage of offices for driver's licenses: It has 76, with varying hours.

The raw number of driver's licenses that the department processes likely doesn't help.

"An estimated 1,253,192 Alabama driver's licenses will be issued by DPS during fiscal year 2014," said Morris. "Currently, wait lines vary at DPS district and field offices throughout the state depending on day and time for each particular office."

The 1.25 million license number may seem high, but it's normal. In fiscal year 2013, 973,245 licenses were issued, and 196,255 licensing exams were conducted.

No other task within the department comes close in terms of number. The runner-up is traffic tickets issued in 2013: 274,542.

The department hopes that a coming merger under one law enforcement umbrella could find money. But staffing for driver's license workers is still a question mark.

"One of the areas that desperately needs improvement is driver license," said Collier. "The current business model for driver license isn't working -- the system is inefficient and archaic."

In fiscal year 2014, the department was budgeted at $176,345,000, up 2.17 percent from 2013's $172,592,000 budget. The department is funded through the state's troubled General Fund, but also through revenue from the federal government, and tickets and fees.

A breakdown of the budget, by the Legislative Fiscal Office, shows the General Fund supplies $53.8 million of the Public Safety budget -- less than one-third. Other state funds account for another third, with federal and local funding sources making up the remainder.

The recession and aftermath have pounded the department. The General Fund contribution to the Department of Public Safety is down 39 percent since fiscal year 2008, when the department got $88 million. By fiscal year 2011, that was down to $62.3 million.

Collier said possible solutions to the driver's license lines could include transferring a portion of the sworn officers assigned to driver's license offices to Highway Patrol, and replacing those officers with civilian staff.

Collier said his office is also looking at ways to use advancements in technology to alleviate or reduce wait time.

The department is testing two automated kiosks, one in Mobile and one in Birmingham, which will allow citizens to renew their driver's license or order a duplicate license, he said.

An additional 10 automated kiosks will be installed in driver's license offices throughout the state by the end of 2014, said Collier.

Updated at 10:11 a.m. to include information about cuts to General Fund and loss of examiners.

Updated at 4:44 p.m. to remove reference to Jefferson County.