In the following article, a city has finally decided that it might be a good idea to conduct background checks on all new hires, because of the 12 or so employees that have arrest records, and of those individuals, half were convicted. In this day with information so readily available it is just plain negligence not to conduct criminal background checks.

Later in the article, it talks about the employment application and how it has not been required for the applicant to fill out the portion for recent felony convictions. The article does not mention that the applicants are required to fill out a background authorization form, which the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires. I believe that these municipalities are best served in outsourcing their background checks to a company that knows the laws.

Nearly a dozen of the town’s 32 civilian employees have arrest records, and about half of those were convicted of crimes, Eatonville authorities recently learned.

As a result of the findings, three employees were dismissed. The Orlando Sentinel is not naming any employees because, with a few exceptions, the offenses were minor and committed more than 10 years ago.

Eatonville officials spent the past two months investigating the criminal histories of its employees after the Sentinel revealed in July that the town’s planning director, Henry Johnson, was awaiting trial on charges that he took thousands of dollars in bribes from a developer while he was a planner in Miami Beach.

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