Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Employment Background Checks topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee approves bill to allow single criminal background check for state IT staff
Summary
Representative Joe Palmer, R.-District 20, introduced House Bill 277 to allow a single criminal background check for Information Technology Services employees who now must submit multiple agency checks.
Representative Joe Palmer, R.-District 20, introduced House Bill 277 to the Commerce and Human Resources Committee, saying the bill would allow a single criminal background check for employees of Information Technology Services (ITS) who currently must submit multiple checks to different state agencies. "What this bill does is allows for single criminal background checks on employees from the, technology service, information technology services," Palmer said.
The bill, Palmer said, would reduce duplication and save the state money. "Probably about 12,000. I believe the number was $12,200 per year," he said, adding that consolidating checks would also save staff time.
The bill drew questions from committee members about the fingerprinting process and how agencies would handle failed checks. Jason Pierce, deputy chief information officer and administrator for ITS, told the committee that fingerprinting is performed by the state police and that ITS currently must have up to 10 separate background checks for a single worker because it works with nearly 60 agencies. "The fingerprints are done by the state police. We already have to do up to 10 for each individual person, and this is just to make it so that we as ITS have our own, fingerprinting that can be acknowledged and accepted by all those agencies," Pierce said. He added that if an applicant does not "pass" a fingerprint check, ITS would "find out why they didn't pass and what we can do to fix it if the fingerprints were the issue."
Committee members also asked whether the single ITS check would remove other agencies’ additional screening requirements. Pierce said it would not: "This does not exempt us from having to do extra stuff. Like, tax might have something extra. ITD might have something different than just the FBI, background check."
Representative Healy moved that the committee send House Bill 277 to the House floor with a do-pass recommendation. The committee approved the motion by voice vote; no recorded roll-call tally was provided in the transcript. The committee chair announced, "Motion passes. It will be done."
The bill will be carried on the House floor by Representative Palmer.
