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And for our 900th EmployeeScreenIQ Blog post we have IRONY!  When we started blogging many years ago we wrote a lot about the failures of FBI background screening .  Well today, for our monumental 90oth post, the story has been written for us!

Fired Due To Error In Background Check, Carroll Woman Still Jobless

Eschol Amelia Studnitz lost her $58,000 accounting job July 31 …

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Many organizations use employment background checks as a way to look at an individual’s past  to determine future behavior.  It can be very helpful when you find adverse or negative information.  But what if the background check doesn’t reveal any red flags?  The lack of negative information certainly stacks the odds in your favor that future behavior behavior will follow suit, but it’s not a guarantee.

Not sure if you saw this, but a Newark airport security guard was arrested for threatening to shoot President Barack Obama a day before he was supposed to fly into the that airport.  The New Jersey state police  licensed this individual and the company who hired him claimed that he passed their background check.  Let’s give both the state and the company the benefit of the doubt and say that this person was really never convicted of a crime.  Can the state or the employer be held accountable?  In my opinion, no.  They performed proper due diligence.  Remember, the lack of negative information can’t guarantee that the person will never pose a risk.  It just says that at the time you ran the background check, there was no adverse information.  Ordinarily, this is a pretty reliable indicator for the future, but not a guarantee.

See Newsday Article

Obama Threat Suspect Had Passed Background Checks

A security guard charged in a shooting threat against President Barack Obama had cleared extensive state and federal background checks, the Port Authority said Friday.

Screening for security guards is under the spotlight after an unarmed Newark Liberty International Airport guard, John Brek, 55, of Linden, N.J., was charged with three state felony counts after he was allegedly overheard making comments while on a coffee break a day before Obama was due to fly into the airport. Brek, a six-year employee of Floral Park-based FJC Security Services, has pleaded not guilty. One charge against Brek is for knowingly receiving a stolen rifle.

New Jersey State Police licensed Brek as a security guard after he met the required criminal-background checks, the Port Authority, which has a contract with FJC, said Friday. Brek also received authority clearance to work at Newark Liberty after he cleared its required FBI and 10-year background screening, an authority official said.

But a former police officer and chief executive of a national securities firm said such screenings aren’t always enough to weed out bad seeds. Michael Evans, chief executive of security firm USPA Nationwide, said a psychological evaluation also should have been required.

“I can see how it happened,” Evans said. “People put their best foot forward in their job interview.”

Psychological evaluation isn’t required under New Jersey state security guard licensing requirements, however. Prosecutors are seeking a psychiatric evaluation as part of their case against Brek.

Evans said contractors should require private security firms to perform psychological tests on employees. “It’s very hard to know what people are actually thinking,” he said.

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Unless you have been on a desert island all weekend you might have heard about the recent Van Jones story coming out of Washington.  Van Jones was recently appointed as the “Green Job’s Czar” by President Obama.  The controversy sets in because there is no legal requirement for the administration to properly vet a Czar.  Unlike a cabinet level position, Czar’s are not subject to thorough FBI background checks or Senate approval.

However, many of the stories are misleading.  It is correct to assume that Van Jones did not go through the same process as other “non-czar’s” but don’t be fooled, a full criminal background check is always conducted.  The United States Secret Service would not allow anyone access to the President on that level without being fully checked for criminal records.  You need a background check just to step foot in the West Wing of the White House.  What does not occur is the type of vetting that goes on with other appointees.  As we can see from this story, that happens in the court of public opinion.  The Czar rule gives the administration a lot of flexibility to avoid certain process and get things done quickly, but we see now that can have adverse consequences.

Lets be clear, this is NOT a process invented by the Obama Administration.  Czar’s have been appointed going back many Presidential terms.  This is not a shot at one particular decision.  A thorough background screening process just makes sense. While trying to make this posting as politically benign as possible, I will say this; being in the screening business, I would not recommend appointing a presidential dog walker that is not properly checked out.  In the future, it would be my hope that future appointees are researched a bit more thoroughly.

Pence requests background checks of all Obama ‘czars’

As controversial White House ‘czar’ Van Jones resigns, leading House Republican Mike Pence requests background checks on all Obama-appointed ‘czars.’

Key GOP Congressman Mike Pence is uncomfortable with President Obama’s “czars,” and he would like to have background checks conducted on all of them and is suggesting suspension on future czar appointments. The House Republican was a leading voice on the Van Jones resignation – after Van Jones was associated with the 9/11 “truther” movement.

“I’m suggesting that the administration should suspend immediately any future czar appointments while both the constitutionality of this practice is examined and while the background and qualifications of individuals who’ve been appointed as czars is carefully examined,” Pence said.

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In wake of shooting, move will come with a price tag, to be passed on to participants

By Christopher Baxter OF THE MORNING CALL

Most Palmer Township residents knew Daniel Autenrieth as a neighbor and youth baseball coach before the June day when he led state Trooper Joshua Miller and other officers on a winding chase that ended in a shootout in the Poconos. Both men died.

In the wake of the shooting, the Palmer Township Athletic Association plans to implement background checks for all coaches, assistant coaches and parent helpers. The policy was in the works before the tragedy, Vice President Jim McDonald told the Board of Supervisors on Monday, but the outcry from parents since has been fierce.

”With recent events in the community and society, there’s an ever-growing outpouring for this kind of thing,” McDonald said. ”Background checks are not an end-all, meet-all. They don’t catch everybody, and that’s something the community needs to be aware of.”

The practice, common among youth sports organizations in the Lehigh Valley, will help screen out applicants with a violent history or record of abusing kids, McDonald said. Preliminary plans for the policy would require coaches, assistant coaches and parent helpers to submit to FBI background checks and child abuse checks.

A panel of people will then review the checks and make a final determination, McDonald said. All approved coaches and helpers will receive a standard T-shirt to indicate they have been cleared. McDonald said the checks have become so sought after that some leagues won’t allow Palmer’s teams to compete without cleared coaches.

The association will pay for the background checks by raising its fees, McDonald said. The association estimates it will cost $15,000 up front to run checks on all current coaches and helpers. Costs will then decrease dramatically, as most coaches return each season and will not need to be rechecked, McDonald said. The fee increase has not yet been set.

Supervisor Chairman David Colver said parents should understand that the protection has a cost, and that Palmer generally charges much less for its sports leagues than other municipalities. McDonald said the association plans to use a town hall-style meeting to educate its members on why the fee must be raised.

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This story proves that you can have all the right employment screening policies and procedures in place to mitigate risks in the workplace (okay, I’m not a fan of statewide background checks, but that’s for another time), but those practices mean nothing when you have an unscrupulous employee at the controls.  The Palm Beach Post is reporting that a convicted murderer was working as a janitor at a local school until it was discovered that he served 15 years in prison for a murder he committed in the 1970’s.  He had also been arrested 13 times for a variety of crimes including murder and rape, not necessarily something parents look for when entrusting their kids to a school.

To his credit, he reported this conviction on his application.  Jacqueline Clervan-Harrell, a family friend of the employee, was the school administrator who was responsible for executing the background check.  It seems that she conveniently “forgot” to conduct a background check on this particular employee.  He had been working at the school for 3 years until the state found the conviction while doing a random post employment background check.

Thankfully, it appears this employee did not engage in any criminal activity while employed by the school.  And I know that this will no doubt spark those that say that he has served his time and should be allowed to move on with his life.  But, can you imagine the liability the school and the state would face if something would have happened? It clearly pays to screen (and monitor) the screeners.  And by the way, does this individual have a case against the school since he divulged his conviction?

Convicted Murderer Mopped Watson B. Duncan Middle School Floors for Nearly Three Years Undetected

For nearly three years, a convicted murderer mopped classroom floors and emptied trash cans, undetected in the halls of Watson B. Duncan Middle School.

Curtis McRae, a 59-year-old school custodian, never tried to hide that he’d served about 15 years behind bars for killing a liquor store manager in the 1970s in a $100 robbery gone wrong. It was listed right on his school district application.

He should have been rejected outright because of his criminal history, under Florida law. But McRae had some help on the inside, a recently-released school district investigation revealed.

Jacqueline Clervan-Harrell, a woman McRae knew through his family in Pahokee, was the “gatekeeper” in charge of monitoring district fingerprinting and background checks.

She “basically circumvented the process for him to come on board,” said Darron Davis, Chief of Human Resources. She was also listed as a reference on his application.

No one noticed anything unusual for two years as the place on the form that should have borne McRae’s fingerprints sat blank.

A routine compliance check eventually flagged McRae. By that time Clervan-Harrell had retired. She could not be reached for comment.

When McRae’s fingerprints were checked against the FBI database, the results were disturbing.

He’d been arrested 13 times, including for murder and rape.

“I was shocked,” said Davis who not in charge of HR when McRae was hired. “It’s hard to swallow that that was something that was done. You just don’t circumvent the system particularly with things of that magnitude. You’re talking about our kids.”

McRae was fired in May.

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Ready. Soapbox in place, OK, here we go!

Dear Uncle Sam, when you put a mandate in place please make sure you have the capacity and bandwidth to execute it.  I am sure we can all agree that screening dockworkers is paramount to an effective homeland security policy.  However, if you can’t screen them and reach your deadlines who is going to work on the docks?  Uncle Sam, many of us have lobbied you for years that the US Government does a horrible job with background checks, maybe this is your lesson learned.  As background screeners, we understand that the unions position is contrary to the goal that every job is not for every person.  We do agree with them that this process is very much flawed and workers can’t feed their families because you (still talking to my fictional Uncle Sam) can’t do your job properly.  A proper employment screening program can be executed by a qualified employment screening company in 1-3 days.  I am sure the AFL-CIO would concur that your method is flawed, lets do it right!

Report: Security Screening Process Flawed, Leaves Dockworkers Jobless

Thousands of longshore workers, truck drivers and other workers at ports across the nation are out of work, not because of a staggering economy, but because they are caught up in a backlogged, inefficient and often inaccurate screening process for background security checks.

According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the federal Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) post-Sept.  11 port worker background checks have put thousands of otherwise qualified and experienced port workers on the streets instead of the docks, with no rights to back pay once they gain their security clearance.

Most of the workers caught in this bureaucratic limbo are members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), Longshoremen (ILA) and Teamsters (IBT).

The report is the first evaluation of the worker protections in TSA’s Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC). It finds that thousands of workers—disproportionately African American and Latino men—have had to wait an average of seven months while their applications are reviewed, leaving them unable to work and support their families in the midst of a devastating recession.

According to the report, “A Scorecard on the Post-9/11 Port Worker Background Checks,” more than 10,000 workers had lost their jobs while awaiting TSA approval of their TWIC cards after the April 14 compliance deadline passed. Laura Moskowitz, a NELP attorney who led the study, says:

Due to serious problems with the FBI’s records, insufficient staffing and poor TSA screening protocols, there have been major processing delays for workers at ports, which means that large numbers of hard-working families are being left out in the cold at the worst possible time.

To be approved for access to the ports, applicants are subject to criminal background checks using the FBI’s database, immigration status and other security checks. However, the report notes that 50 percent of the FBI’s rap sheets are incomplete or out of date. Contrary to the federal law, TSA denies credentials in an overly broad range of cases such as open arrests, even if they have been dismissed or addressed.

When a worker is denied a security clearance and decides to appeal, Moskowitz says:

TSA and the FBI put the entire burden on the worker to collect the necessary information to clear their records and navigate the process all on their own, which then leaves thousands of workers falling through the cracks of the TWIC program.

It also finds that while worker protections in the program’s appeal process take far too long, eventually almost all workers win their credential cards on appeal. More than 24,000 workers, largely African American and Latinos, were able to keep their jobs with the help of the special protections for workers who are initially denied a credential card based on their record.

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There’s a new update on the story we posted earlier this week about Cook County Board President Todd Stroger.  You may recall that he hired his good friend, Tony Cole, to work for the city even though this person had at least two felony criminal convictions on his record and allegations of rape.  He even kept Cole on the city’s payroll after his cousin, the now-former CFO, twice bailed him out of jail for violating an order of protection filed by his ex-girlfriend.

First, Stroger admitted that he knew about Cole’s background.  Now, he claims that the FBI background check that was mailed to him was “lost in the mail”.  Doesn’t this sound like “the dog ate my homework”?

See Chicago Tribune story below.

Cook County: Todd Stroger Sticks By Story About Worker’s Past

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger maintained Thursday that he has given consistent answers about an ongoing patronage scandal, even as new information cast doubt on his administration’s version of what happened before he dumped his cousin from the county’s top financial post.

The county’s personnel chief said Thursday that his staff received an FBI report Nov. 20 that showed a troubled steakhouse busboy Stroger put on the payroll lied about at least two previous criminal convictions on his job application and a sworn affidavit.

A couple of hours earlier, Illinois State Police told the Tribune that the agency mailed a final criminal background check to the Stroger administration Dec. 20 — more than three months before Stroger fired Tony Cole, who’s at the center of the controversy. Stroger blamed state police this week for Cole’s delayed firing, saying it took them three months to complete the check. On Thursday, a Stroger spokeswoman suggested that the report might have been “lost in the mail.”

Both revelations left more questions about Stroger’s repeated assertions that when he fired Cole on April 9, it was just days after learning about Cole’s undisclosed criminal convictions. County commissioners pressed Stroger for answers during a meeting called Thursday to discuss the scandal.

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How Does Teacher Accused of Child Sex, Slip Through Cracks?

A routine traffic stop in Nashville, leads down a road filled with cracks that expose holes in the system when a former Hamilton County teacher accused of sex crimes, is given a teaching job in Nashville and is now accused of doing the same thing there.

Ronald Boykin worked in the Hamilton County school system and at Brainerd High School as a teacher’s aid off and on from the late 90’s until 2005.

When allegations surfaced that year that Boykin was engaging in sexual acts with minors, he was suspended and resigned about two months later. A Hamilton County grand jury indicted Boykin in 2006 on four counts involving the rape, sexual battery by an authority figure, and the attempted sexual battery of three male victims– two of them underage. The incidents date back to 1999.

Yet, despite outstanding warrants for Boykin’s arrest in connection with the crimes, for the last two years, he has been teaching at Donelson Middle School in Nashville: now he’s accused of sex crimes involving two 14 and 15 year old middle schoolers there.

“Thus far the department has identified two boys who say they were victimized and inappropriately touched by Boykin while at his home in Nashville,” Metro police spokesperson Don Aaron says.

Once Nashville Metro police turned up the outstanding warrants on the Chattanooga charges during a traffic stop last week, they contacted the Nashville school system. Those charges were news school administrators.

According to Nashville schools, the TBI conducted three background checks on Boykin. Those checks do not include active warrants, so the man accused of the sexual battery of teenagers, was free to keep teaching.

Making matters worse, Hamilton County department of education spokesperson Danielle Clark says Nashville never called to ask them about Boykin’s personnel file.

“To our knowledge, we do not have any record of a call or contact from Metro Nashville to check about Mr. Boykin,” Clark says. She also says the director of human resources “does not have any recollection of a call coming in.”

If Nashville school administrators had called Hamilton County, Clark says public documents like his suspension letter that details Boykin’s misconduct, and his resignation letter would have been made available. But now, instead, Nashville has allegations and victims of their own claiming Boykin touched them inappropriately.

A TBI spokesperson says, all of the fingers can’t be pointed at Nashville schools. Spokesperson Kristin Helm says the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office had information on Boykin’s whereabouts; information that was given to them by the FBI  every time a background check was requested, and could have led to Boykin’s arrest.

Sheriff Jim Hammond says he’s looking into it.

“There does appear to be at least two, maybe three times that he applied for a private job where companies that wanted to put him to work, contracted with the TBI to see if there were any warrants on him,” Hammond says. “The manner in which those searches took place is really the critical issue here. I’ve got to trace down who did what at what time to see was there an active warrant on this gentleman.”

Boykin is due in court in Hamilton County for the four sex crimes this Friday, April 3rd. He’s also facing five counts in Nashville.

All of Boykins outstanding charges were readily available as public record on the Hamilton County Court system’s website.

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I had the honor of representing the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) along with 20 other colleagues from the screening industry on their annual Washington DC lobbying event.  We had a busy schedule of meetings over a two day time period highlighted by sessions with the EEOC, FTC and officers of our nation’s senators and congressmen.

We met with staffers from the following legislators: Senator Chuck Grassley (Republican-Iowa), Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (Republican-Texas), Senator Mark Warren (Democrat- Virginia), Congressman Sam Johnson (Republican-Texas), Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (Republican- New Jersey), Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat- New York), Sentor Orrin Hatch (Republican- Utah), Senator Kay Hagan, Democrat, North Carolina, Senator Arlen Specter (Republican- Pennsylvania), Congressman Lamar Smith (Republican- Texas), Senator Byron Dorgan (Democrat- North Dakota), Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat- Vermont), Congressman James Moran (Democrat- Virginia), Senator John Kerry (Democrat- Massachusetts), Senator Dianne Feinstein (Democrat- California), Senator Benjamin Cardin (Democrat- Maryland), Senator John Ensign (Republican- Nevada) and Senator Johnny Isakson (Republican- Georgia).  Our meetings primarily focused on three core issues which are being addressed in upcoming legislation:

Senate  Bill 163 (Child Protection Improvements Act of 2009)- Calls for the development of a mandatory background screening process for child care givers (day care, teachers, camps, etc.).  As an industry, we fully support this legislation.  However, we have concerns about the type of background check that the bill calls for, particularly its reliance on the FBI Criminal Database and state criminal record repositories.  It is a commonly held misconception that these two resources are the most accurate and reliable resources for conducting background checks.  In reality, there are far more effective methods for determining whether someone has been convicted of criminal activity.  The most thorough, accurate and reliable method being a county criminal record search in all counties where the subject has resided under all names used complemented by a National Criminal Record Search which includes a multi-jurisdictional Sex Offender Registry Search.

Senate Bill 141 and House Resolution 122 (Protecting the Privacy of Social Security Numbers Act of 2009)- This bill is aimed at curbing identity theft and calls for a limitation on how Social Security Numbers can be used in commercial situations.  Such measures include restricting access to public records which contain this information.  There is a provision to protect the continued permissible use of personal identifiers for legitimate purposes such as background screening and our efforts focused around reinforcing the need for this language and educating staffers on the importance for these identifiers.

Extension of E-Verify Program- This internet-based system is operated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration and allows employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their employees.  House Resolution 1105 reauthorized the program through 9/30/09 and we support further extension of this important government program.

Meeting with the EEOC

This was a truly enlightening experience.  We met with Carol R. Miaskoff who is an Assistant Legal Counsel for the agency.  Carol shared with us the role of the EEOC and its stance on background checks.  She was very clear that the EEOC did not have a problem with background checks as anexercise proper due diligence.  Where they do take exception is with bright line policies such as “do not hire anyone with a criminal record”.  They believe that such policies would have a disparate impact on minorities.  We spent a great deal of time discussing El v. Septa as it will continue to be an important force in future guidelines on background screening.  At the end of the day, the EEOC wants employers to demonstrate job relatedness, the nature of the offense, whether the candidate was a repeat offender and how long ago the crime was committed.

Meeting with the FTC

I was not there for this meeting but I understand that much of the meeting focused on the privacy issues previously mentioned on SB 141 and HR 122.

I was a truly an enlightening experience which provided much insight into our legislative process.  I am confident that the work we accomplished in just two days will have a positive impact on our industry and on employers that rely on the use of employment background checks.

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City to require background checks to rent buildings

Thursday, February 26, 2009
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Background checks now will be required of anyone wanting to rent a city school building for a private or group event.

The school board Tuesday voted to require building use appplicants to provide state police, FBI and child abuse clearances — the same clearances required for prospective employees.

The district will deny the use of buildings to anyone whose criminal record would prohibit employment with the district. That list of offenses includes most major crimes and sex offenses.

For now, only the person applying to use the building must submit the clearances. In the future, the district may request the clearances for other adults participating in an after-hours activity at a school building.

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