May 15, 2015 By Suzanne Elliott 2 min read

Peters Township will purchase an electronic fingerprinting system due to new regulations that go into effect July 1. The regulations require any employee or volunteer who has contact with children to have a fingerprint-based federal crime history done by the state police or the FBI.

“We’re looking at a way to provide a service to the community,” said Monica Merrell, Peters Township councilwoman.

The changes are part of a package of legislation enacted in response to a report of a state Task Force on Child Protection, which was prompted by the arrest and conviction of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on charges of molesting children over a number of years. People working with children must now have a criminal history report from the state police, a child abuse clearance from the Department of Human Services and be fingerprinted.

The law does provide a waiver of the FBI fingerprint check if a volunteer has been a resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the entirety of the previous 10 years and has never been convicted of a disqualifying offense, such as a criminal homicide.

Council is considering charging $27.50 for the fingerprinting service. The other two necessary clearances usually take two weeks to get and cost $10 each, bringing the cost of all three mandatory clearances to just under $50. These clearances must now be obtained every three years.

Township manager Michael Silvestri said an electronic fingerprinting system costs $6,000. Locally, there are electronic fingerprinting devices in Washington and Moon Township.

“I would not expect the machine to arrive for approximately six weeks,” Silvestri said. “The machine will be housed at the recreation center. At this time, we have not established the hours of operation for general public use. I anticipate there will be certain hours that we will advise its availability, but that has not been determined.”