I have reported many times that with state agencies and public services, especially, the powers that be seem to conduct background checks after being confronted with either disaster or some embarrassing and costly situation. I recent wrote about Washington D.C. mandating expanded background checks in an article entitled, Washington D.C. to Mandate Background Checks for Political Hires. Another related article was entitled, Another School District Cited for Not Conducting Background Checks.
The list goes on. My articles addressing this issue are not quite extensive. Being proactive in some cases and ordering background checks as part of an employment screening program just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for governmental and public service agencies. perhaps it’s budgetary concerns in the bad economy. Perhaps no one wants to know the person they hired has a criminal record, a history of sexual abuse, substance abuse issues…whatever. Unless they have to know.
Having to know means that something has happened. Someone got hurt or killed, or abused in some way. It could be a fellow employee, a student, some kid in the playground. It could be any number of things. But then, and in some cases only then, someone takes a deep breath and orders up background checks to make sure these kinds of misfired mis-hires don’t happen.
Again.
