Plan for Fingerprinting Welfare Recipients Advances

County supervisors moved ahead Tuesday with a $2-million plan to fingerprint local welfare recipients in an effort to catch “double dippers” and other clients who may be filing fraudulent claims.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton, who made the fingerprinting idea a priority when he took over as chairman in January, said the unanimous vote “moves us a step closer to ensuring that very precious dollars set aside for the needy are preserved, in fact, for the needy.”

But the decision drew immediate criticism from advocates for the poor, who suggested that the county is stereotyping welfare recipients as “cheats.”

“There’s an assumption here that these people are a problem, that they’re somehow trying to take advantage of the system,” said Nancy Rimsha, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Orange County. “This seems quite outrageous to me.”

Rimsha said the fingerprinting plan “is just another message to people who don’t have money that you’re not entitled to the same constitutional rights to privacy as the general population.” She added that Legal Aid will study the plan to determine whether to bring legal action against the county.

Tuesday’s vote authorized county staff to prepare requests for proposals from businesses who want to establish and operate a computerized system to fingerprint the more than 4,000 people who receive General Relief welfare payments each month in Orange County. A last-resort program primarily for unmarried adults without children, General Relief pays county residents about $300 monthly.

It will likely cost about $2 million to put the system in place, perhaps within two years, said Bob Griffith, chief deputy director of the County Social Services Agency. A feasibility study reviewed by the board predicts that the system could save the county up to $2.4 million in welfare payments in its first five years of operation.

Officials also predict that it will deter double dippers from seeking aid at all, saving more money. “This system will pay for itself,” Stanton said. “It seems to make good business sense.”

Since March, 1991, the county has used a new computerized fraud-detection system to identify more than 400 Orange County aid recipients who were simultaneously receiving money from the social service system in Los Angeles, officials say.

The current system assumes that the recipient uses identical or similar names in both counties. The new fingerprinting plan is expected to take fraud detection a step farther, officials say.

The system is modeled on one that has been in use in Los Angeles since mid-1991--the first of its kind in the nation, officials say.

As planned, General Relief applicants who come to the county’s Santa Ana or Anaheim offices will also be directed to a fingerprinting station. The print image would be transferred to storage on computer software, then matched against those on file in Los Angeles and perhaps other area counties.

Griffith said the plan should not pose any civil rights problems.

“I don’t see this as any extra invasion of privacy,” he said.