This bill reenacts and amends RCW 43.43.837 to expand and clarify fingerprint-based background check requirements and related definitions for persons who will have unsupervised access to vulnerable adults, children, or juveniles in programs overseen by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). It requires fingerprinting for applicants in specified roles (including long-term care workers, direct care workers, child placement providers, certain household members age 16 and older, high-risk providers, residential habilitation center and transitional care facility staff, and contracted homeand community-based service providers). DSHS may require fingerprints at application or when new information arises about charges, convictions, or adverse actions; applicants who have lived in Washington less than three consecutive years must submit prints to both the Washington State Patrol (WSP) and the FBI for certain categories. The bill also defines many terms used in the chapter (for example, "authorized," "entity representative," "high-risk provider" which includes any person with a five percent or more ownership interest, "long-term care workers," "service provider," "transitional care facility," and "unsupervised"), establishes that DCYF will pay WSP and FBI fees for foster care and childcare applicants and service providers, and directs that WSP and FBI fees for fingerprint checks for certain specified services be paid by the applicable department. Except for long-term care workers covered by RCW 74.39A.056, applicants required to complete fingerprint-based checks may be hired provisionally for up to 120 days while a check is pending if initial results do not disqualify them. DSHS and DCYF must adopt rules identifying who is financially responsible for paying fingerprinting fees charged by law enforcement. These changes are procedural and administrative: they modify existing law to expand background check requirements, clarify definitions, set fee payment responsibilities, and allow limited provisional hiring; they do not create a new criminal offense or change criminal penalties. Some statutory text and definitions are missing from the provided material (for example the complete definition of "area agency on aging" and potentially other subsections and structural elements), so full scope and any additional provisions beyond those summarized here cannot be confirmed from the extracted facts alone.

If enacted, many more people who work with vulnerable adults, children, or juveniles — including direct care workers, foster and childcare applicants, residential and home‑based service providers, and owners with at least five percent interest in certain providers — will routinely face fingerprint and FBI background checks. That will create more upfront screening work for DSHS and DCYF and likely slow some hires unless employers use the newly allowed 120‑day provisional hiring window; provisional hires reduce immediate staffing shortages but carry the risk that someone later disqualified already provided unsupervised care. Departments will also need to handle ongoing rescreening when new criminal information appears. The biggest practical budget and operational effects fall on DSHS and DCYF (more administrative workload and higher fingerprint fee bills) and on provider organizations and individual applicants (more mandatory checks and potential short-term hiring disruption). The bill shifts some fingerprint fee payments to the departments for foster/childcare and several long‑term care program categories, which lowers direct costs for those providers but increases department expenses. It remains unclear from the provided text exactly which categories will have fees covered in every case and how departments will allocate fee responsibility; the departments must adopt rules to sort out those payment details.