VIDALIA — Concordia Bank & Trust Co. will soon have a presence in the Concordia Parish Courthouse after bank officials cut through a significant amount of bureaucratic red tape.

Senior Vice-President Pat Galloway said bank officials had been searching for a convenient location to place an ATM that would be centrally located within the parish.

“We had been wanting to put one in closer to the new ball fields in Vidalia,” Galloway said. “We kept hearing people say they could use one at the courthouse to pay fines, so we started looking into that.”

Those calls turned into a lengthy game of phone tag, Galloway said, as he began calling all the various agencies that needed to give approval for a private business to enter a public facility.

The first call was made to the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office, where Galloway spoke to Administrative Assistant Donna Jones regarding their need for an ATM.

Galloway then called the Concordia Parish Police Jury to speak with the buildings and grounds committee for approval to install the machine.

“The police jury said it was fine, but they wanted me to call Brad Burget at the district attorney’s office to make sure everything was legal,” Galloway said. “I think he had to call the attorney general’s main office in Baton Rouge, but found out it was perfectly fine.”

The last call Galloway made was to the Louisiana Bankers Association to check their rules on the matter.

Galloway said officials at the LBA said the bank could install the ATM as long as it didn’t cost the police jury or the citizens of Concordia Parish any money.

Jones said she contacted other banks in the area to make sure they had the same opportunity that Concordia Bank had to install an ATM.

Delta Bank Executive Vice President Jeanine Herrington said she received a call from Jones, but that the bank did not currently have the proper network to install an ATM at the courthouse.

“We’re always interested in doing anything that helps the public,” Herrington said. “We’re just not set up to have a distribution of ATMs like that right now.”

The police jury approved the installation of the ATM at its Jan. 28 meeting.

Galloway said the ATM for the courthouse has been ordered, but that it will take two months to arrive.

An exact location where it will be installed hasn’t yet been determined.