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Relating to the access of criminal history record information by the Department of Family and Protective Services.
The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the
legal basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions of the
bill.
Under current law, DFPS is granted the authority to conduct
background checks on persons who the department determines is necessary to
"ensure the safety or welfare of a child, elderly person, or person with a
disability." This bill would limit the pool of individuals for whom DFPS
must conduct a background check to those individuals specifically enumerated in
the bill.
After a routine review of state statue, the FBI determined
that the definition DFPS used for its background checks was too broad, and
specifically asked that it be narrowed to those individuals enumerated prior to
the language change which took place last session.
In addition to narrowing population of individuals who are
subject to background checks by DFPS, the bill also seeks cost saving measures.
Under current law, some specific occupations/volunteers are required to
complete a name based background check and an FBI background check. Because the
FBI background check is more extensive, complete, and less prone to the errors
than the name-based check, that second check is duplicative. This bill would
drop the requirement of conducting both a name-based background check, and an
FBI background check in those cases.