Census Workers and the Background Checks

Two job applicants with minor criminal records have filed challenges in court with the Census Bureau and their pre-employment screening process.

They claim they were unfairly rejected because the could not provide court records surrounding their settled cases.

Records are no longer available for misdemeanor offenses committed long ago. The two African American men claim the screening process is racially charged as the majority of applicants with these types of offenses will be black, Latino, or Native American.

The Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, declined to comment, but their spokesperson, Nick Kimball did state that safety was the reason for the screening process:

"Americans must be confident that if they don't mail back their forms and a census taker must come to their door, we've taken steps to ensure their safety."

The Census Bureau is expected to hire more than 700,000 temporary employees and will use FBI fingerprint checks for the first time.

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Denver Public Schools Investigates their Gardeners

Denver Urban Gardens - a 25 year old nonprofit organization works directly with Denver Public Schools (DPS) to lease over 100 plots along the Colorado Front Range, including 20 public schools in Denver.

Gardeners participating in these programs grow veggies and flowers in fenced in plots of ground on public school land. The gardeners are being asked to undergo a criminal background check if they wish to continue gardening.

DUG coordinator, Jessica Romer sent an email to all gardeners last week saying that "being a gardener on school property is a privilege," and that gardeners are guests and must comply with DPS policy.

"My reaction is disbelief and anger," said Kellie Papish, who with her husband, gardens at Steele Elementary School, "community gardeners are a threat to children? Where did we go so wrong that if you potentially have contact with a child you have to have a background check?"

The nearly $16,000 cost of the checks will be footed by DPS.

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Protect Your Business, Verify Past Employment

The fact that recent studies indicate that nearly 75% of all resumes contain some sort of falsification and that 89% are downright misleading means that a background check with a resume verification is in order for all pre-employment screening procedures.

An employer's lack of foresight can come back to haunt them. In fact, companies can be held liable for negligent hiring and retention. There can be public relations nightmares. All can be avoided by the due diligence, resume verification and education verification can head off wrongful termination lawsuits, it saves you time and money otherwise wasted by recruiting, hiring, and training the wrong applicants.

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USA Swimming to Check Coaches

Recently sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting young swimmers, Andrew King had access to the young girls through his position as a USA swimming coach for more than 30 years.

The King case exposed the massive shortcomings of USA Swimming and local swim clubs in dealing with coaches who preyed on their young swimmers. The coaches manage to jump from team to team, ahead of allegations surrounding their departure.

Chuck Wielgus, the executive director of USA Swimming said that it is his goal to create a "gold standard program for dealing with conduct complaints and abuse allegations."

Some say Wieglus' attempts are too little too late. In 2005, in a "State of USA Swimming" address, USA Swimming president, Ron Van Pool said that plans for a background screening process were nearing completion. The plan was not adopted until 2006, and placed the heavy burden of paying for the expensive tests on the volunteer boards at local swim clubs.

In the past 10 years, 36 swim coaches have been banned for life from the USA Swimming for sex abuse or misconduct, but the organization doesn't always notify the police.

USA Swimming is looking to implement the following strategies for dealing with sexual misconduct:

• Anonymous reporting
• Intense examination of how complaints are made and who handles them
• How coaches, swimmers, parents, and staff are educated about appropriate behavior
• Reinforcing to local swim clubs that is their responsibility to conduct in-depth background checks

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Wisconsin School Moves Toward Background Checks for Volunteers

Wausau School District in Wisconsin depends on volunteers for nearly all aspects of the education process - school field trips to classroom activities. The district is proud to have some many caring parents and members of the community willing to volunteer to be more involved in their schools.

But allowing anybody access to work with the children means the schools must have strong mechanisms for screening and checking on all the people who will be working directly with students.

Wausau School District means to perform background checks on classroom volunteers. Though these checks are no a foolproof way of protecting the students, they're a prudent additional layer of security.

"Volunteers in our schools are important," said co-Assistant superintendent Bruce Anderson. "We value their role, and balance that by having everyone who is in contact with children have clearance through a background check."

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Background Checks for Michigan Tax Break Recipients

Governor Jennifer Granhom ordered criminal and credit background checks for all business tax break recipients in the state of Michigan.

Last Tuesday, one such individual was scheduled to receive $9.1 million abatement, that person was a convicted embezzler.

The program called for is a "business integrity verification program." It calls for requiring tax credit applicants to answer an integrity questionnaire and agree to a civil, criminal, and credit background check in order to receive tax credits.

"We are fighting hard for every company investment that help us diversify our economy and create jobs for Michigan citizens, and this incident is wholly inconsistent with the work we're doing and the integrity of our whole process," Granholm stated.

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Nurse Hides Deadly Criminal Past

Joseph Angelo Mannino was hired as a data entry clerk at Lehigh Valley Hospital in North Carolina in 2005 - 13 years after injecting his college roommate with a deadly cocktail of drugs.

He spent two years in prison on manslaughter charges. Mannino eventually became a registered nurse at the hospital before another employee alerted the hospital to his past indiscretions.

Lehigh Valley Hospital spokesman, Brian Downs says that Maninno lied to the hospital about his criminal history on both his job and school applications. A criminal background check was conducted on Mannino at the time of his hire in 2005, but it wasn't comprehensive and didn't cover convictions in other jurisdictions.

The hospital now runs national criminal background checks and Maninno admitted to hiding his conviction. His license was revoked in 2009.

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Don't Forget the Marijuana

Lashamma Lawson went to the Dougherty County Jail on Monday, March 2nd in Albany, Georgia to pick up her prepared criminal background check for her new job.

Lawson forgot to remove the ten bags of marijuana from her purse before entering the jail and was arrested when her purse was searched.

Lawson was released on $5,000 bail.

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Referees Need Background Checks

Salt Lake City public schools are having an intense debate. The focus is around legislature to enact criminal background checks for volunteer referees for the public school system.

They would implement a $40 charge for each referee so they could have the check performed.

Legislators are in an uproar about the matter. Rep. Brad Dee wondered, "Is this a solution to try and find a problem," indicating there have bee no previous incidents.

Other states have already implemented similar policies, like Texas. Referees themselves are concerned about colleagues who had inappropriate backgrounds that were known to the community.

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Report: Background Checks Increase Nationwide

Workforce Management reports that the background screening industry has seen explosive growth over the last decade. Criminal background checks are becoming nearly universal with 93% of all employers nationwide performing some type of criminality check.

10% of employers report that criminal records lead to adverse affects when making a hiring decision.

71% of employers report that they conduct criminal background checks to protect their organization and reduce risk.

There has been some controversy behind the sudden increase. Employers using criminal background checks to make long lists of applicants smaller, to many, appears to be discriminatory. These employers are essentially using criminal records, traffic violations, or bad credit to make character assumptions, even when there the records are not related to the job at hand.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a claim that employers rejecting job applicants based on their credit history and criminal offenses were exclusionary practices and are not indicative of employee performance.

In an online poll, 73% of nearly 2,500 voters agreed that the practice is indeed, discriminatory:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=1655

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How to Hire

What do you do when your best employee relocates to another city and another job? You're number one sales associate changes professions? Or your lead manager left for lunch and never returned?

In either scenario, you'll be left in a pinch. In situations such as these, impulse hiring can be tempting, replacing a valued employee can seem daunting, and rash decisions are easily made.

To keep your head on straight during this stressful period, remember a few golden rules:

1. Know the position. The better you understand the requirements of the job, the more simple it will be to pull out the most qualified candidates. Re-think the job description and make sure it truly describes the duties expected and required of the job.

2. Develop an outreach plan. Target your job market effectively by utilizing the appropriate listing services. Job seekers are online, on social networks and looking for the best position available to them. You want to collect the attention of the best job seekers so you want to advertise the position using as many outlets as possible.

3. Screen application. You should have a stack of excellent looking applications and resumes. When it comes time to narrow the playing field, you'll need to weed out anyone who isn't an immediate match. Pre-employment screening is an effective way to do this. Conduct background checks. Call references, not just those listed but check former employers as well. This last step is vital to insuring the safety of your organization.

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Work Place Violence

After the fatal shooting in Orlando, FL and the mass murders at Fort Hood in Texas, the issue of workplace violence has America buzzing again.

The Fort Hood incident has received a lot of media coverage already and is one of those terrifying incidents that remind us all that people are unpredictable and that they can be violent. Due to the large-scale terror inflicted by the gunman at Fort Hood, much of the incident in Orlando was under covered by the media.

After one year at an engineering firm in Orlando, Jason Rodriguez was fired for failure to improve performance. Over the next two years, Rodriguez apparently never got over the termination and returned to the job killing one employee and injuring others.

While rare, these types of incidents remind people in our industry of exactly why background checks are down. Not all workplace violence result in death or serious injury, but we should all be aware of the escalation that can occur. Those instances of non-lethal violence such as stalking, threats, intimidation, harassment or property destruction often go unreported. Bullying can escalate and most businesses, at some point, experience some form of work place violence.

Background checks are important for finding out if a person has a past history of violence, but it is important to remember that if somebody has no past, there is really know way of knowing if they are capable of such violence.

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7 Hot Topics When Selecting a Background Screening Firm

If you are in business, you know that often, one of the best ways to protect your company is to protect it from criminals. Most companies perform pre-employment background checks, band almost all consider it at some point.

As a company makes their selection process the following seven hot issues are things to consider when making your service provider selection. The industry is moving away from the idea that background checks are the unequivocal way to weed out a bad choice, and understand that the entire investigation can actually play a role in defining your company values and what constitutes a qualified candidate.

1. Your service provider should be able to guide you in making decisions based on the quality of information provided. They can help you implement company wide hiring decisions, make them visible to all recruiters. Company-wide hiring standards protect you in the long wrong. Ask your provider or your prospective provider today what they can do to help.

2. Advances in technology allow your provider to give you faster initial screening results that reach a broader amount of sources for information. Automated database searches can give you quick delivery of results, but should also be backed up by in-depth searches to ensure no records were missed. Be wary of a service provider who sells you an instant background check with no other investigations, they are likely utilizing a database and are bound to miss records.

3. New studies indicate previous notions about the likelihood to commit crimes have changed. New laws may be introduced as a result of these studies. Your provider needs to be aware that employment laws are subject to change. You should feel confident your provider will provide you with the information necessary to keep you legal and for the fair treatment of all applicants.

4. As job competition heats up, more and more applicants will be using inflated information on the resumes - they will falsify work information, education history, references, anything they can to get an edge over their competition. Ask your provider what sort of measures they take to ensure your candidate really is the best person of the job, and not just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

5. Regular follow up background checks are a good idea. Many companies use a background check as a pre-screening tool only, but if your now current employee commits a crime over that long three day weekend, there is a chance you may not know about it. Follow up screenings can be sensitive areas and it's a good idea to consult with your provider to set up company-wide standards and procedures.

6. Employment authorization. Be sure your employees are eligible to work in the United States. The subject has been under scrutiny for the last 3 years in Washington, DC, and many new laws have gone into effect that could seriously undermine your ability to perform well under a government audit.

7. Your provider should also be up to date on the growing unease of the use of credit checks as a pre-screening tool. Washington state, Connecticut and Hawaii have all passed laws regulating the use of this information. Ask your provider how that effects your pre-screening policy today.

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Job Hunt, Don't Lose Your Identity

If you're one of the thousands of Americans on the prowl for a job, you should be aware, you are a target for a sophisticated and particularly cruel con artist.

Richmond, VA - The Office of Consumer Affairs reports 87 consumer complaints about the companies Virginia Personnel, Inc. and New Beginnings, Inc. Both companies fraudualently extracted identifying and personal information from the "applicants." Some of the tactics they used that you should be aware of:

• Job Guarantees - the old saying still goes, if it sounds too good to be true...
• They actually sold "Employment Information" and never advertised a job position.
• Do not include any identifying, personal information on your resume. No need to put your SSN number on that document.
• Provide only your email address until a position is formerly offered and a start state is set.

Lynn Oaks of TrustedID says, "Only share information that will allow them to contact you to have a follow-up conversation." Also, check out the company before agreeing to anything. See if they have a legitimate website, read online reviews.

Biggest tip offs that you're working with a scam artist:

• Job offer with no background check
• No face-to-face interview
• No reference check

Be careful out there!

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Los Angeles City Councilmen Embezzle Thousands

Los Angeles neighborhood council officials are unelected and unpaid. Apparently, they are also not subject to background checks to earn the role, despite the fact that many of them have access to large sums of taxpayer dollars.

It is one thing to have one or even two council members working together to embezzle money, but when half a dozen member make off with over $250,000, the city of Los Angeles should seriously reevaluate their vetting process.

89 LA neighborhood councils received $50,000/year to spend as they see fit upgrading playgrounds and business districts, removing graffiti and having neighborhood sponsored block parties.

Created in 1999 to empower communities, neighborhood councils provide a grass-roots like movement that allow people to have a say in how their tax dollars are spent. They ought to implement a background check as their first order of business for every councilman.

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iPhone App Promises Instant Background Checks

It was only a matter of time. With all the applications available for iPhone, why not an app for running an instant background check?

The free app is called "Date Check" and lets you perform a basic background check on your Friday night dinner companion. Please note, the application itself is free to download, the background check is not.

Using only your dates name or cell phone number, "Date Check" launches several searches, such as "Sleaze Detector" which looks at criminal information, and "Net Worth" which provides detail about a persons assets.

The check costs up to $40 per search, but leaves a lot to the imagination. Legitimate background checks utilize a variety of information to pull information from criminal records, a name being only one of those pieces of information. Be wary of any "instant" check that promises a lot for such a small amount of information, and then charges top dollar for it.

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Bus Driver with Record of Drug Related Incidents

Who do you want driving your children to school? Brian Skoglund, 40 was hired by First Student Bus Co. in Northbrook in May. First Student apparently did not run a background check on Skoglund because if they had, they would have found that his employment records were not in good shape.

Seven months earlier, Skoglund was fired from another company for drug related incidents. Skoglund is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 27 on the child endangerment charges and driving under the influence of drugs. He was pulled over for erratic and dangerous driving on September 17 while driving a busload of 7th graders.

First Student Bus Co. claims that Skoglund offered them a letter of recommendation from his former employer, but Rigoni said that the village not only never sent a letter of recommendation, but also was never notified about Skoglund's employment with the bus company.

It is common sense to contact references and former employers for any position you are hiring for, but plain negligence when that position holds the lives of children at stake.

Even in light of Skoglund's background and last week's incident, Richmond said the bus company continues to have complete confidence in its hiring practices.

“First Student's pre-employment background checks are widely known as the most extensive in the industry and often exceed state requirements,” she stated. “The company requires each prospective driver to pass federal, state and local checks, which include criminal, employment and driving histories. In addition, prior to employment each First Student driver is subjected to a drug screening. Regular rechecks are conducted throughout an employee's tenure with the company.”

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California City Regulates Mobile Vendors

Lathrop city officials are working to pass a mobile vendor ordinance to regulate pushcarts and food wagons. The ordinance would give officials and local police to oversee the mobile vendors and require them to provide information about their equipment and merchandise. They would be subject to criminal background checks and inspections by policy. Parking hours and areas of operation would also be regulated.

Lathrop is one among a few cities nationwide opening policy to overseeing such vendors. In large cities, vendors such as these go largely unregulated and unwatched. The vendors in Lathrop will be required to pay a feed from $225 per cart. The amount of time a vendor can be in one location has increased from 10 minutes to 30 minutes.

And those mandatory criminal background checks for every vendor, a result of the unfortunate incident of a sex offender found operating an ice cream truck in Sacramento. The man was caught taking photographs of children and their homes. An ice cream truck driver who has access to children and provides those children with a false sense of security.

Mayor Kirsty Sayles said, "It's a cheaper and better way to do business and to protect the children, I can sign on to that."

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Criminal Background Checks Lagging for Volunteers for Children

Criminal background checks are required in Massachusetts for any volunteer hoping to work with students, but the since the state gutted the criminal history systems board, the backlog has made it nearly impossible to process the checks.

There are only a few people to handle the tens of thousands of requests, creating a turnaround time of almost a month for checks that should take no more than three days.

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Fake Job References on the Rise

As if there weren't enough side effects of the current economic climate, new companies are cropping up to help job applicants lie and get away with it. With the rise in unemployment, a more competitive job market is to be expected.

But new companies like Alibi, HQ are making it extremely difficult to weed out the falsifications. The company charges an extraordinary amount to provide professional references, employment verifications and other "discrete" services.

The success of these companies is unknown, but it isn't surprising that the market is headed this way. Many people are out of work and desperate for jobs. Desperate times lead to desperate measures.

Liberty is doing everything in our power to insure accuracy of our verifications.

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