The Alabama Banking Department is looking for a few good examiners.
After being stretched to its limits when SouthTrust Bank changed to a state charter in the second quarter of last year, the department has initiated a plan to double its examination staff to 90 in two to three years. 
We have a lot of people doing double duty in different areas, said Trabo Reed, the deputy superintendent of banking. And its time to let people totally focus on one.
The conversion of $44.6 billion-asset SouthTrust, Alabamas largest bank, to a state charter added to the rapidly expanding amount of bank assets under the states supervision.
Three Birmingham-based institutions Regions Bank, AmSouth Bank, and Compass Bank and the Montgomery-based Colonial Bank, all state-chartered, have grown substantially in the past few years through out-of-state acquisitions. The four institutions had nearly $115 billion of combined assets in the third quarter.
Like these banks, SouthTrust switched to a state charter because of the lower fees and less complicated supervisory structure.
With SouthTrust coming to the state level, we couldnt be happier, Mr. Reed said. But suddenly we had many more assets under a state charter.
Only New York has more bank assets under state supervision than Alabama, according to the Conference of State Bank Supervisors most recent profile of state-chartered banking, yet Alabama has only 45 commercial bank examiners. (New York has about 400.)
States like Louisiana and Colorado have about the same number of examiners as Alabama, but they supervise only about $15 billion of assets each, a far cry from Alabamas $190 billion.
Despite the high asset-to-examiner ratio, Dan G. Bailey, the executive vice president of the Alabama Bankers Association, said that the state had not lapsed in its examinations procedures. The Alabama State Banking Department does an outstanding job and has an excellent working relationship with its banks.
The recruiting effort began with an announcement in the supervisors groups newsletter and a notice on its Web site. Mary White, a spokeswoman for group, said that this is the first large staff increase the trade group is aware of at any state banking department in recent years.
The Alabama banking department says it is looking for experienced regulators and bankers to fill the positions. An examiner with one year of experience can expect a salary in the range of $25,000 to about $39,000, while a division manager with 12 years of supervisory experience can earn up to $92,406, according to the Web site notice.
When the staff is doubled, the Alabama banking department hopes to have two sets of examiners: one to handle SouthTrust, Compass, and other large multistate banks, and another to supervise the 125 or so community banks.
Mr. Reed also said that the state was also looking for examiners with expertise in specific evaluation areas, such as capital markets and information technology.
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