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SALT LAKE CITY -- A legislative audit released Tuesday said the state is doing a poor job of identifying convicted criminals who work in public schools and that districts should conduct periodic background checks on employees after they're hired.
The Department of Public Safety is supposed to maintain a database of public education employees and notify the Utah State Office of Education of any arrests, but the audit says that has never occurred since lawmakers ordered it in 1999.
State law says the state education department is required to fund the database, but school officials never requested that it be created and the Department of Public Safety never checked to see why not.
Both agencies say they're now working to create the database.
The audit says the lack of a database has resulted in a flawed and ineffective system of identifying employees' criminal histories.
"Our primary concern, as is the major concern of public education officials, is the safety of the children," auditors wrote.
Auditors found some current school employees who had been convicted of indecent exposure, felony sexual assault and drug-related crimes. Some of those were teachers hired before background checks were required for new employees in 1994.
Auditors had DPS run background checks on 1,200 employees from 32 schools in four districts: Granite, Davis, Jordan and Salt Lake City.
The audit found 17 of those employees -- including teachers, custodians and office staff -- had committed crimes auditors found concerning, such as a teacher with a 1979 conviction for aggravated assault with a baseball bat.
State Superintendent Patti Harrington wrote in response to the audit that the State Office of Education would immediately establish a file of fingerprints for all public education employees, regardless of hiring date, and that it would work to create new rules requiring periodic background checks.
"Then when (someone) is picked up for DUI in the future, the list itself will automatically trigger that fingerprint file to go against the criminal conviction file to see if there's a match. So we will know immediately if there's a public school employee involved in any criminal behavior."
Harrington says they will take other steps as well.
"Student safety is goal number one in operating public schools in Utah. We will continue in our efforts to ensure child safety with increased diligence and clarity," Harrington wrote.
She added, "Local school districts are the ones that hire custodians, lunch workers and school secretaries. We'll be working very closely with districts to come up with a board rule that will probably require periodic checks so we don't go any length of time not knowing when people are involved in criminal behavior."
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Mary Richards contributed to this report.
