Officials Butt Heads on Food Stamp Fingerprinting

NEW YORK—City officials are seeking to eliminate fingerprinting from the food stamp application process, after years of effort.

“Why has New York City for the past four-plus years asked the state for special permission to engage in a process which is costly, punitive, and has no effect?” City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn said.

She said legislation will be introduced next week that will require the city’s Human Resources Administration (HRA) to track the costs of the procedure, the number of people scanned into the database, and how the fingerprints will be used. The fingerprinting requirement is in place to prevent fraud. Since the city requested to retain the fingerprinting process in 2007, no cases have been referred to the prosecutor’s office based on fingerprinting evidence.

State Sen. Martin J. Golden criticized the call to end the fingerprinting practice. Martin called on Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the HRA commissioner to stand against efforts to discontinue the program.

“For Speaker Quinn to call a practice that has eradicated food stamp fraud ‘unnecessary, costly and punitive’ should sound an alarm for every New York City taxpayer. I can’t stress enough how important it be that the food stamp application process continue to include electronic fingerprinting,” Golden said.