The Bartholomew County Clerk’s Office has resumed accepting marriage license applications by appointment, but with some extra precautions in place to minimize the risk of spreading COVID-19.
People who wish to apply for a marriage license in Bartholomew County will have to start the application online at www.in.gov/judiciary/2605.htm and then call the clerk’s office at 812-379-1600 to schedule an appointment to process the application and pay fees in person at the Bartholomew County Courthouse, said Bartholomew County Clerk Jay Phelps.
Appointments will only be provided on Mondays and Wednesday from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Phelps said. There are only 16 appointment slots available each week – eight appointments each day in 15-minute increments.
However, fees will now be collected inside the Bartholomew County Clerk’s Office, with staff staying behind a glass barrier in the office, Phelps said.
In addition, courthouse security is now checking everyone’s temperature, including courthouse staff, before they are allowed to enter the building, Phelps said. People who have a temperature of 100.2 degrees or higher will not be permitted to enter the courthouse. Only the applicants will be allowed to go inside the courthouse for the appointments — no children, aunts, uncles, parents, friends or other family members.
The idea behind the new process, he said, is to reduce the flow of people coming into the courthouse and minimize contact between applicants and staff.
So far, the new process, which started late last week, has worked “pretty well,” Phelps said.
“We normally have a private office where we do marriage licenses,” he said. “However, there is no barrier where we can keep folks apart. So we decided to have folks come to the clerk’s office. We have a glass barrier there. They will be on the other side of the counter just like folks who are making a payment.”
County officials had temporarily stopped accepting marriage licenses on March 24 after the approval of three local judges, who did not think marriage licenses were an essential function of the court during a pandemic.
Initially, county officials had considered accepting marriage license applications entirely online via Zoom, but ran into some roadblocks, including how to accept payments online.
“Folks probably still would have had to come and drop that off at our drop box and we thought, ‘Well, if they’re coming here anyway, maybe Zoom isn’t the best option,” Phelps said. “…There is a high volume for those (applications), and we understand that. It’s a public service. Since we couldn’t really nail down the Zoom option, we still wanted to be sure that people would be able to process their licenses.”
Last week, Phelps said he and other staff held a meeting via Zoom with three local judges — Bartholomew County Superior Court I Judge James Worton, Bartholomew County Superior Court II Judge Kathleen “Kitty” Tighe Coriden and Bartholomew County Circuit Court Judge Kelly Benjamin — to see if the judges would support the added precautions.
Phelps said the judges still feel that accepting marriage license applications isn’t an essential service during the pandemic, but gave the OK for the clerk’s office to start accepting applications again via appointments because the new process would allow staff and applicants to maintain social distancing at the courthouse.
“We were doing them five days a week anytime between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. So we’ve greatly reduced the slots. It’s not as if we’re having 100 people come in each week,” Phelps said. “…I know some counties have completely shut that down, but we just didn’t feel comfortable doing that since there were so many folks who were calling in and the interest was high.”
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People who wish to apply for a marriage license in Bartholomew County will have to start the application online at www.in.gov/judiciary/2605.htm and then call the clerk’s office at 812-379-1600 to schedule an appointment to process the application and pay fees in person at the Bartholomew County Courthouse, said Bartholomew County Clerk Jay Phelps.
Appointments will only be provided on Mondays and Wednesday from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Phelps said.
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