CENTRE — The Cherokee County Commission recently corrected an oversight that Probate Judge Melvyn Salter said has effectively made it possible for local businesses to skirt paying their business license fees for years.

With the recent hiring of a new license inspector with arrest powers, Salter said he hopes the county has forever closed the loophole and put all county businesses on a level playing field, tax-wise.

“After not having an inspector for six years, some people forget about renewing their license despite the mailer they get,” Salter said. “Some others think they can get away with not doing what they are supposed to. We did a study a few months ago and came up with about 200 businesses that had failed to renew their business licenses.”

Salter said it is the County Commission's job to hire and maintain a license inspector, which it did until a few years ago when the position was eliminated. Salter declined to offer any more specifics, citing ongoing litigation over the decision, which occurred before he was elected in 2006.

Judge Salter said not having an inspector for those years had gotten the county into a position it didn't want to be in – facing a mandate from Montgomery that could have led to the state government appointing an outside inspector for Cherokee County.

“There are some laws that have been passed over the past few years that affect the revenue commissioner's office,” Salter said. “It had come to the point where the state would have mandated that we have a license inspector and we would have had no control over that.”

Salter said former Cherokee County Sheriff Larry Wilson was hired last week by the Commission. Salter said Wilson will work part-time, for now.

“Larry is going to work up to 15 hours per week, and he will be paid $10 an hour,” Salter said. “Plus, he will receive a portion of the $18.50 fine the county will receive for each ticket he writes. The rest will go into the General Fund.”

Salter said the county did its homework before filling the position this time around. Salter sought out the opinion of various state agencies and license inspectors from counties across Alabama to determine what the exact responsibilities of the office should be. He said Wilson has already undergone training from an inspector from Morgan County who has over 30 years on the job.

“Tim Burgess and I met with Eddie Sims in October, and he shared with me all the requirements we needed,” Salter said. “Those requirements included someone with a law enforcement background, because this is essentially a law enforcement position.”

Salter said Wilson's top priority will be to make sure every business in the county has all the proper licenses.

“We've got to have someone to make sure that people are buying those licenses,” Salter said. “And we're talking about multiple types of licenses — such as tobacco and alcohol, for example.”

Salter said Wilson's other main function will be to ensure that every business is also following the law regarding sales tax collections.

“I'm almost certain there are places in the county that are collecting sales tax and not forwarding it to the county,” Salter said. “So, Larry will be focusing on business licenses, but he will also serve as the eyepiece for the revenue commissioner's office.”

Salter said six years without proper enforcement means there's really no way to know, at this point, how much money the county has missed out on because of not having a license inspector.

“We'll know in a year,” he said. “There's no telling how much it has cost the county over the past six years.”