Stanislaus County Clerk Recorder Lee Lundrigan is advising the public that birth, death, and marriage certificates may soon be in short supply.

These vital records require a secure level of both paper and printer security features to protect them from counterfeiting. 

Several states, including California, legislatively adopted a printing method known as “Intaglio” as the primary and required sole source of their security. Although a confident method of security, Intaglio printing is only used by a limited number of printing plants in the world.

Recently, several Intaglio printers have either closed their doors entirely or elected to eliminate their Intaglio print divisions.

Among those printers was NBN/Sekuworks, LLC, of Cincinnati, who was the sole supplier of secure bank note paper used by State of California counties to print certified copies of birth, death and marriage certificates

“There is no known United States source of bank note paper which can meet California’s current legal restrictions, although 38 other states allow alternative security features in place of Intaglio printing,” said Stanislaus County in a press release.

The sensitized specially printed security paper used to certify and print birth, death, and marriage certificates in California is rapidly becoming unavailable.A statewide solution is being sought for this serious shortage of bank note security paper, including obtaining paper from outside the United States and seeking to legislatively update California printing requirements.

California counties have limited supplies of printed bank note paper on hand and there is concern it will not be sufficient to meet the demand until new sources can be obtained.

In order to support the needs of Stanislaus citizens, customers will be limited to one copy of a certified birth, death, or marriage certificate. Birth and death certificates from 2014 and 2015 must be obtained from the Stanislaus County Public Health Department, located at 820 Scenic Dr. in Modesto.

Customers requiring multiple copies of certified birth, death or marriage certificates are asked to obtain them from the California Office of Vital Records in Sacramento.