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No significant fiscal implication to State.
Local Government
School districts, charter schools, and SSAs would be required to perform
additional criminal history checks on all employees and would be
required to discharge any employees that had been convicted of certain
offenses even if the employee had been younger than 18 or had satisfied
court requirements over 30 years before 2007.
School districts,
charter schools, and SSAs could not hire an applicant that had been
convicted of certain offenses even if the employee had been younger than
18 or had satisfied court requirements over 30 years before 2007.
There
would be administrative costs to conduct new criminal background checks
on all employees and there would be administrative costs to replace any
employees that had to be terminated. These costs would vary from
district to district, charter school to charter school, and SSA to SSA
depending on how many employees could no longer remain employed.
This bill affirms the principle of personal responsibility and the principle of limited government. Since children are mandated to attend school and a majority of children attend government school, the government has a responsibility to protect children from individuals who possess a track record of certain offenses. This also affirms the principle of personal responsibility because it protects parents who may not want their child or children exposed to individuals who have been convicted of certain offenses. For these reasons, we support HB 1497.
This bill could be strengthened by amending to change "shall" to "may" in order to make the provisions of the bill a permissive authorization rather than a mandatory requirement. This would enable schools to implement the provisions in the way that works best for them.