Protect Yourself: Investigate Before You Hire

If you look in your daily news feed, or perform a simple internet search, you will notice numerous instances of municipal officials taking advantage of their position of trust, often engaging in fraud to convert public funds for their own use. In some cases, you might find police officers who are accused of egregious misconduct that results in liability for the municipality. In both instances you may wonder “How in the world did this happen?”

It’s a reasonable question. In some cases, it’s a matter of misplaced trust, blinded by our perceptions. After all, “Mary” the township treasurer was the nice lady who remembered everyone’s birthday and brought cupcakes. She would never commit theft or fraud, right? In other cases, it’s a lack of internal controls or poor supervision. However, many times it’s revealed that the employee had something in their background that should have given pause to the hiring authority and may have disqualified them from employment to begin with. In other words, the red flags may have been there all along, but you just didn’t see them.

A pre-employment background investigation – NOT an online “screening” or “check” – can serve as the first step in quality control in your hiring process, and help to manage risk going forward. This is particularly true for those appointed officials who will have access to municipal funds, input into awarding bids and contracts, access to employees’ Personally Identifiable Information, and/or use of the municipality’s accounting and finance systems. When hiring for police department positions, from Chief to entry level patrol officers, Pennsylvania mandates via PA Act#57 certain requirements for the conduct of background investigations. That law states that these are minimum requirements and encourages municipalities to go beyond those mandates for such hirings. There are gaps in what PA Act#57 accomplishes.

Municipalities are encouraged to seek professional assistance to conduct background investigations on potential employees in those categories where risk and liability are most prevalent. Many already do this. Our team at Keystone Municipal Solutions recently assisted a municipality in their recruitment and vetting process, and we found adverse information that resulted in their bonding company refusing to bond an employee. Imagine the ramifications of suffering an internal theft and having the bonding company refuse to cover losses because there was no due diligence in the hiring process! We’ve also seen police officers with “baggage” move from municipality to municipality often wreaking havoc because only the minimum background investigation was done.

Remember: There are legal requirements under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and other laws that need to be considered BEFORE you do a pre-employment background investigation. Seek advice from your HR professional, solicitor or labor & employment attorney; and only hire experienced and credentialled investigators to provide services.

Sometimes municipalities question the cost of a background investigation and hold their breath thinking it won’t happen to them. I’ll leave you with two more cliches applicable when it comes to cost: “Pay me now or pay me later” (popularized by a Fram Oil Filter commercial from the 1970’s) and “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. (Benjamin Franklin 1735.)