Child-care workers will soon need to be fingerprinted for criminal background checks under a new state law that takes effect Jan. 4.

Few child-care providers disagree with the goal of the law: making children safer. But many have raised concerns about the cost and inconvenience of getting the fingerprints taken.

"It's an unfunded requirement that creates hardship in the field because we're running on a very tight budget," said Susan Hagner, executive director of Emerson School for Preschoolers in Concord.

State legislators passed a law in 2006 requiring that all child-care personnel in state-licensed programs be fingerprinted. The fingerprints will be run through both state and national criminal databases by the state police and the FBI.

Denise Corvino, chief of child-care licensing for the state, said implementation of the law was delayed until 2010 after the state learned that fingerprints would have to be digitized in order to go through the FBI database.

"We realized the startup costs alone were exorbitant, and the Department of Health and Human Services wasn't in a position to expend the cost for machinery," Corvino said.

Recently, HHS formed a partnership with the Department of Safety, which will now do the fingerprinting. The Safety Department already processes fingerprints for criminals and anyone else undergoing a criminal background check.

Department of Safety spokesman Jim Van Dongen said the fee charged to child-care providers will cover the cost of the background check.

The law applies to all paid or volunteer child-care workers who have regular contact with children, and all adult household members of a home in which a child-care facility is located.

According to the law, any child-care center employee hired after Jan. 4 will need to be fingerprinted.

Child-care facilities will not need to have all of their employees fingerprinted immediately but will have to do so before their license is up for renewal - which could be up to three years from now.

The state has 1,140 licensed child-care programs, Corvino said. The state already performs criminal background checks on child-care employees, but the fingerprinting will allow it to access the FBI's national database.

The police do not hold onto the fingerprints but will send them to the state's child-care licensing unit to review.

New Hampshire workers who already have to be fingerprinted include nurses, school employees, drug and alcohol counselors, and some municipal employees.

According to the law, a child-care facility can have its license revoked if an employee has been convicted of a violent or sexually related crime against a child, or of "a crime which shows that the person might be reasonably expected to pose a threat to a child," such as a violent or sexual crime against an adult. The background search will also look for other felony arrests that could endanger a child, as well as proven complaints of child abuse or neglect.

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