Employers, more than ever before, need to protect themselves against accidents and crimes committed by their employees. With negligent hiring, lawsuits, training costs, workplace violence and theft on the rise, pre-employment screening as well as taking the correct pre-employment screening steps are no longer an option, but rather a necessity for businesses.

State Restrictions on Reporting

There is a substantial difference between state laws that restrict the use of criminal records by employers and laws that restrict what a vendor may report. Several states restrict what a vendor is allowed to report (these states have different, more strict, limitations than the FCRA). More and more states, however, are revising their laws to mirror the federal guidelines.

States that recently still restricted vendor reporting of criminal conviction information to seven years were California, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hamshire, New Mexico, New York, Texas, and Washington. However, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Washington waive the time limit if the applicant is reasonably expected to make $20,000 or more annually. In New York, the exception is $25,000 and in Colorado and Texas, the figure is $75,000.

It should be no wonder that many employers and vendors concentrate on complying with the federal FCRA guidelines.

Tags: California, Colorado, criminal records, employment screening, FCRA, Kansas, laws, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Washington

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.