The DMV office in the Harrietstown Town Hall will open this door, seen her in March, on Tuesdays, in addition to Wednesdays, starting this week. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

SARANAC LAKE — The Department of Motor Vehicles in the Harrietstown Town Hall will be open on Tuesdays, starting this week, as Franklin County staff say new hires in the department have allowed them to expand their hours recently.

The DMV in the town hall will now be open Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., doubling its hours. Since the DMV office in the southern end of the county reopened in April after two years of having its doors closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, it has only been open on Wednesdays due to low staffing levels.

Deputy town Clerk Judi McIntosh said adding Tuesday hours was good news and that residents of the southern end of the county have been hoping the DMV would be open more in each week.

“The people there were very appreciative of us opening back up for Wednesday, but at the same time, we’re extremely busy on Wednesday and there’s always a line,” county Clerk Kip Cassavaw said. “We’ve got more staff, and the staff we have is farther along in their training, so it’s allowing us to expand a little bit and add another day.”

But the county is still looking for more DMV employees as it still doesn’t have enough staff. Cassavaw said the county had a resignation from a DMV position this week he is trying to fill.

“It’s hard to find staff,” he said.

Currently, the employees staffing the local DMV travel from Malone.

At the DMV, people can register cars, motorcycles, boats, campers and snowmobiles; and handle lapses in their insurance. For two years, before the Harrietstown office reopened, local motorists had traveled to Malone, or to North Elba or Elizabethtown in Essex County, to do their DMV business.

The Harrietstown DMV’s low number of days open has been a campaign issue for candidates running for Franklin County legislature in Districts 6 and 7, which cover Tupper Lake, Brighton and Santa Clara; and Harrietstown and Franklin, respectively.

Harrison said the lines were especially long at first when the office reopened because spring was the time of year when boat owners were registering their boat trailers. Boats have to be registered every three years, but boat trailers have to be registered every year.

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed quotes to Harrietstown clerk Sabrina Harrison; it was Deputy Clerk Judi McIntosh who spoke with the Enterprise for this story. The Enterprise regrets the error.