LEWISTON – Beginning next month, the state will require all would-be teachers, bus drivers and substitutes to pay for their own fingerprinting and background checks in a move that is expected to save the state nearly $400,000 year.

Come Sept. 17, some 7,000 applicants and new hires in school districts around the state will be required to pay the $55 fee. Current school employees have already gone through background checks and won’t be affected.

Some school officials say the fee could deter people from applying for low-paying jobs and make hard-to-fill positions even harder to fill.

“For substitute bus drivers it’s a whole day’s pay. Maybe when you take out taxes, it’s more than a day’s pay,” said School Union 44 Superintendent Paul Malinski, who oversees schools in Litchfield, Sabattus and Wales.

When Maine first required fingerprinting and background checks of school employees in the late 1990s, workers had to pay for their own.

But the Maine Education Association, the state’s largest teacher union, fought to repeal the law because workers had to pay and many considered it demeaning and unnecessary.

The union lost the battle to repeal the law, but it succeeded in getting the state to pay, which it’s been doing for nearly five years.

The Maine Department of Education stands to save hundreds of thousands of dollars by passing the cost on to workers. It also stands to make money by doubling the fees it charges to certify teachers and administrators every five years.

“It helped balance the budget,” said Greg Scott, a department spokesman.

Maine Education Association Executive Director Mark Gray said the union will go back to the Legislature and fight again.

“If the state is going to require fingerprinting, they should, at a minimum, pay for it,” he said.

Some school officials said they will consider reimbursing new employees for the cost, but this year’s school budgets are already set and it will be hard to shift money to pay for a new expense.

Malinski wondered why the state reversed its rules with so little notice. He only found out Wednesday.

“The Legislature could have said, ‘You need to budget for it because … this is going to be a reality,”‘ he said.