“While we had certainly hoped that the district and the attorney general’s office would have respected the privacy of individual citizens, we’re now forced to file suit to protect the fundamental rights of AISD employees,” said Doug Rogers, the group’s executive director.

Read the full article here:

While the courts decide the issue, it’s worth discussing what’s at stake here.   The trouble with protecting public records about teachers in a public school is that the students of citizens attend these schools.  It seems that the public has a right to the results of the background checks conducted on the teachers, at least the ”public records” portion, such as criminal background history, civil background history, liens, judgments, etc. 

The importance of background checks in public school cannot be igored.  In light of the litigation involved in the Roman Catholic church scandal over abuse inside the church, any organization must be aware of the potental fallout of negligent hiring and not running background checks on your employees.  School need to screen all employees of the school system, not just teachers. 

 background checks
teacher background checks
education verification 

In addition to her position as office manager, she helped in women’s ministries, led Bible studies, did some churchwide event coordinating, prayed regularly with staff t is a licensed minister,

Read the full article in the Beach Reporter  to learn about some of the practices this employee used to hide her theft.

Anderson was paying all of the church’s bills, but whenever there was money left over, she would take it.

I knew we were looking at phony bank statements. She was having the statements retyped and she was stealing money through online banking. She set up online accounts with my (the pastor’s) Social Security number”

 There has been a spike in newspaper stories recently about employee theft , and unfortunately houses of worship are an easy place for a financial predator to strike.  It can be very hard to protect your business or non-profit organization from this type of criminal behavior if you are not careful. Loss prevention not only the battle against theft, or but also the litigation costs associated with negligent hiring.   The article doesn’t mention whether the church had originally run a background check on this employee.  It is paramount for any organizaton to properly screen their employees, especially anyone with check writing and fidicuary responsibilties.   Run a credit history check for employment, and also check county civil records search for any and all bankruptcy, liens and judgments records.  Finally, run a criminal records seach to make sure your candidates hasn’t been convicted of embezzlement.  

Hopefully the church will be able to get back some of the stolen funds.  Stay out the news by background screening all of your organization’s employees. 

Read the full article here:

 background checks
employment screening
church screening
volunteer background checks

The Baptist press recently quoted a church member:

“I recommend that any church conduct checks on everyone, paid staff and volunteers, who works with children, infant through high school,” Self said. “Run background on everyone, new people or old people. Include Granny and her children.”

While screening children might be taking it too far, it’s important for churches to develop a screening standard for various positions.  A simple registered sex offender screening may protect a church for many negligent lawsuits.  A more thorough criminal records search can be purchased for $15-$30 and can come in the form of a nationwide criminal records database search or a hand pulled county criminal search.  

 background checks   volunteer background checks

Timothy Keil, a camp volunteer, was caught sexually molesting a child inside a cabin at a Perry County youth camp. His crime revealed a loophole that legislators are working to close. The state requires background checks at summer day camps but no checks for residential or overnight camps.

Senate Bill 321 calls for criminal background checks for all camp staffers, FBI hecks if the person has not lived in Ohio for the past five years and requires Social Security number background checks on camp volunteers.

Background checks are becoming more integrated into all aspects our society, usually as reactions to tragic events.  Only too late do we see the potential for developing a screening program for various situations where our children are exposed to criminals.   As with the tragic events of 9-11, we are having a failure of imagination.   A truly effective loss prevention program must include a proper threat assessment that imagines these possible scenarios and institutes the appropriate prevention programs.  Even a simple backgound checking program for your organization can help remove the most egregious of problem candidates, the registered sex offenders.  As you develop the screening standards for you program, you can delve deeper, into criminal history, civil court searches, and even credit report history if your candidate has a fidiciuary responisibility.  

At the suggestion of the Monmouth County Fire Marshal, the council looked into performing background checks for all public safety volunteers.

The new background check policy will apply to all volunteers for the Borough Fire Department. Apparently the background checks will include a criminal records search and possibly fingerprinting, which would mean a check against the New Jersey State Police.  According to the article, the fire department volunteer services do much more than fighting fires, including various activites involving children, such as coaching, etc. 

These background checks should help prevent egegrious crimes against the children involved in the fire departments volunteer efforts. Hopefully, the pure fire fighting efforts won’t be hampered by the new policy 

One in three U.S. nonprofit organizations conducts no background checks on volunteers, and roughly one in eight does no screening at all.

Accordingly, two-thirds of all nonprofits are conducting some type of background screening for their volunteers but “most agencies that serve vulnerable populations could benefit from more thorough and comprehensive volunteer screening practices.”

The National Center for Victims of Crime recommends that nonprofits take the following measures to improve their volunteer screening practices:

Consistently and comprehensively screen volunteers, particularly if they will work directly with clients or have access to sensitive client information.

Include in-person interviews, personal and professional reference checks, and national criminal background checks of names and, if possible, fingerprints.

Check state databases, such as child and adult protective services, in states where volunteers have lived.

Decide which histories will disqualify volunteers, screen for such histories, and re-screen at regular intervals.

The importance of consistently screening cannot be emphasized enough. For employment screening it’s important to be consistent in your screening practices to avoid charges of favortism, etc. However you can screen differently based on employment strata. Access to sensitive information is powerful and with volunteers it is easy to overlook someones background check especially if they seem eager to help. A organization can make the front pages with bad press about lost customer and consumer data, as well as organizational financial information. The results can be disastrous.

Checking nationwide criminal databases is very important because quite simply, some candidates do not commit crimes in the exactly county where they live. This search is especially important for volunteers because it is instant and provides a robust search for felony and misdemeanor criminal activity.