Knik Tribe awarded $199,482 for Palmer fingerprinting site and mobile units

To foster or adopt a child in Alaska, you and everyone 16 and older in your household have to pass a fingerprint-based background check — a requirement federal law has imposed on every state since 2006. In the Mat-Su Borough, some applicants drive up to 75 miles to get printed, and the three walk-in locations that serve them are open only on limited days and hours, according to a federal award record.

The Knik Tribe is getting $199,482 to change that. It will buy a permanent fingerprinting station at its Palmer office and two portable systems it can take out across the borough, where the tribe currently has no fingerprinting equipment or service. Applicants from outside the area will be welcome too. The project is designed to handle up to 50 prospective homes a year, counting every adult in each household, and starts Sept. 30 on a two-year timeline.

The tribe's targets are to fingerprint at least 90 percent of referred applicants within three business days and submit 95 percent of prints within one business day of collection. At least three tribal employees will be trained on all three systems.

The state's own capacity is thinner than it sounds. The Department of Family and Community Services reports 16 stationary live scan machines across 20 offices, and not one portable unit. It is getting $194,880 from the same federal program to upgrade eight of those machines and put 10 portable units in the field for the first time. Kawerak Inc. in Nome is getting $57,703 for a system of its own.

All three come out of a $4 million federal program expected to produce about 20 awards nationwide, each capped at $200,000.