Backgrounds unchecked

"Yes, I'm very concerned," said Sen. Patrice Arent, D-Cottonwood, who sits on the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Standing Committee.

Nearly all school workers ace the criminal history test. But a few years back a Granite District substitute teaching before a background check was complete was arrested for investigation of sexual abuse of a teenage relative. His rap sheet later showed previous offenses of providing alcohol to a minor and lewdness.

Granite no longer employs substitutes before criminal background checks are complete, thanks to a solid temporary work force, attorney and assistant to the superintendent Martin Bates said.

BCI employs eight fingerprint technicians, who do background checks, process fingerprints from jail bookings and perform other duties, Erickson said.

Workers process 3,000 to 4,000 fingerprints each month.

And thousands more keep flooding in.

New laws are requiring that more professionals undergo background checks. Just Friday, HB64, requiring personal care attendants receiving public money to submit to criminal background checks, unanimously passed the House. Fiscal analysts said the bill, sponsored by Rep. Fred Hunsaker, R-Logan, "can be handled within existing budgets."

Maybe so. But combined with other laws requiring background checks for massage therapists, water workers and others, Erickson says BCI can't keep up. Workers for awhile put in overtime, but that got too expensive, Breur said.

"One of the problems is, since 9/11, there have been more government departments requiring background checks," he said. "We totally admit, yes, there's a backlog. But . . . we've not just sat on our hands and said, 'We just can't do it.' "

The department, vocal on better salary packages for law enforcement officers, has not mentioned the BCI backlog in budget presentations to lawmakers, though leaders have met privately with one or two, Breur said.

Some lawmakers are puzzled as to why the backlog wasn't brought to their attention. With budget priority lists due as early as Monday for various state agencies, Arent said she wanted to call public safety commissioner Robert Flowers to testify about the issue first thing next week.

The department actually is asking for money to ease the backlog through technology, Breur said. The $100,000 request is rolled into a larger supplemental funding package.

The money would buy a program called LiveScan, which would allow fingerprints to be digitally input rather than taking prints with ink and paper and mailing them in. LiveScan could process fingerprints within 48 hours, Breur said.

Money for LiveScan has been sought in other places, too. It could have come in a $3 million Health Department grant, mainly aimed at state agencies creating common standards for background check results, Thraen said.

A slice of the grant, which was awarded to Idaho instead, would have placed the technology in 20 state locations, perhaps driver's license bureaus, Patterson said.

Patterson hopes the Legislature will provide the funding this year.

"We're trying to get 20th-century technology," she said. "We still don't have it."

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Contributing: Bob Bernick Jr., Dave Anderton; E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com; gfattah@desnews.com