HR policy - Background checks and positions of trust or access to vulnerable populations

1. Access to vulnerable populations -Responsibilities requires unsupervised or significant access to vulnerable populations, defined as minors and medical patients. For purposes of this policy, a minor is a person under the age of eighteen (18) who is not enrolled or accepted for enrollment at a UW System institution. Examples of settings with vulnerable populations include child care centers, summer camps for minors, precollege or enrichment programs, and health care facilities. This category also includes employees who are not directly working in those units, but have unsupervised access to the unit when the vulnerable population is present. This category does not include faculty or instructional academic staff performing regular teaching, service, and research responsibilities unless these responsibilities include unsupervised or significant access to vulnerable populations. 

2. Property access-Responsibilities require the use of master keys/card access and pertains to employees with key access to offices, facilities, or worksites other than their own worksite, including UW-La Crosse residential housing facilities. 

3. Financial/fiduciary duty - Principal responsibilities (50% or more) require handling, receiving, or having custody of money, checks or securities, or accounting for supplies or other property; authorizing (or making appropriations for) expenditures; approving, certifying, signing or countersigning checks, drafts, warrants, vouchers, orders or other documents providing for the paying over or delivery of money, securities, supplies or other property, or service of process; maintaining or auditing accounts of money, checks, securities, time records, supplies, or other property, or taking physical inventories of money, checks, securities, supplies, or other property.  

4. Executive positions - Responsibilities involve top-level management functions throughout the institution including roles as Chancellor, Provost, and Dean. Executive positions are defined as all limited appointments and include any movement from a limited appointment to a different limited appointment. 

1. Hiring. UW-La Crosse incorporates the following steps into its hiring process. This applies to all vacancies: 

a) Announcing a Vacancy – All vacancy announcements (including ads) should contain the following statement: “Employment will require a criminal background check." The following language also may be added to vacancy announcements and ads: "A pending criminal charge or conviction will not necessarily disqualify an applicant. In compliance with the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act, the University does not discriminate on the basis of arrest or conviction record.” 

b) Offering a Position – Criminal background checks must be completed prior to commencement of employment. All offers of employment are contingent on the successful completion of a criminal background check, or an employee is permitted upon approval of the Director of Human Resources or designee to commence employment pending completion of a check. The appointment letter will state that the employment offer will be withdrawn or terminated if the individual’s criminal background check results are unacceptable. The following statement may be used in the appointment letter. “This appointment is conditional pending the results of a criminal background check. The appointment will be withdrawn or terminated if the results are unacceptable.” 

c) Consent Form – Prior to conducting a criminal background check, the University will secure the candidate’s consent in electronic or paper form. This form will specifically ask a candidate to self-disclose if he or she has ever been convicted of a crime or is currently facing criminal charges. Individuals who decline to sign the consent form will no longer be considered a candidate for the vacancy. 

2. Conducting Criminal Background Checks. Criminal background checks will be managed by the Human Resources Office to include checks of records in all jurisdictions deemed prudent, ensuring confidentiality. A breach of confidentiality, or the inappropriate use of criminal background check information, may constitute a work rule violation and may be grounds for disciplinary action. UW-La Crosse must conduct an appropriate U.S. criminal background check on an applicant for employment, current employee, or volunteer, including foreign nationals. For foreign nationals, a criminal background check in the individual's prior country(ies) of residence will also be conducted if his/her country(ies) of residence provides a criminal background check for the time period during which the individual was a resident. A media search is not considered an appropriate criminal background check and, therefore, UW-La Crosse is not required to conduct media searches. 

a) The employing unit or department is responsible for notifying Human Resources that a conditional offer of employment has been extended and therefore, a background check needs to be conducted. Human Resources will contact the candidate to complete the background check. All costs associated with conducting the background check will be incurred within the Human Resources Department, and program revenue departments will be charged back. 

b) A criminal background check on prospective hires, employees and volunteers must include a check of the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Crime Information Bureau electronic database, and a check provided by a criminal background check vendor that includes the following components: 

• Social Security Number Trace – Authenticates the individual's information and generates a list of addresses the individual has lived at for the last seven years; as part of the trace, the University may verify that the social security number is valid and appropriately assigned to the individual. 
• Criminal Felony/Misdemeanor by County of Residence – superior and municipal court records search in any county in the U.S. in which the individual has resided in the last seven years. 
• Sex Offender Registry -sex offender search by state. 
• National Criminal Background Database - search of the vendor's proprietary national criminal background check database. 

University officials will have certain additional duties under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act when retaining a vendor to perform criminal background checks. Additional criminal and non-criminal checks (e.g., motor vehicle, etc.) may be run when appropriate in relation to the position. Results of criminal and non-criminal background checks run by departments other than Human Resources must be provided to Human Resources. 

3. Making the Decision Regarding Substantial Relationship. Once the criminal background check is completed, the University will need to make a decision based on the information gathered. Wisconsin’s Fair Employment Act states that employers cannot discriminate against prospective or current employees based on past or pending arrests or convictions. There are exceptions to this requirement if a “pending criminal charge” or “conviction record” is determined to be “substantially” related to the “circumstances of the particular job.” To determine if there is a relationship, the Human Resources Department needs to review the circumstances of an offense, where it happened, when, etc. - compared to the circumstances of a job - where is the job typically done, when, etc. The more similar the circumstance, the more likely a “substantial” relationship exists. Human Resources may consult with the hiring department, University police, legal counsel, and other applicable offices regarding the background check results as appropriate to determine whether a substantial relationship exists while maintaining strict confidentiality. 

In reviewing the results of a criminal background check on an individual applicant, UW-La Crosse will review each applicant on a case-by-case basis and consider the following factors in order to determine whether there is a substantial relationship between the pending charge or conviction and the position and whether the applicant should be further considered for the position: 

The Offense. The nature, severity and intentionality of the offense(s) including but not limited to: 

a. The statutory elements of the offense (rather than the individual’s account of the facts of the offense); 

b. The individual’s age at the time of the offense(s); 

c. Number and type of offenses (felony, misdemeanor, traffic, other); 

d. Time elapsed since the last offense; 

e. The individual’s probation or parole status; 

f. Whether the circumstances arose out of an employment situation; and 

g. Whether there is a pattern of offenses. 

The Position. The duties, responsibilities and circumstances of the position applied for, including but not limited to: 

a. The nature and scope of the position, including key access to residential facilities, key access to other facilities, access to cash and access to vulnerable populations, including minor children; 

b. The nature and scope of the position’s student, public or other interpersonal contact; 

c. The nature and scope of the position’s autonomy and discretionary authority; 

d. The amount and type of supervision received in the position or provided to subordinate staff; 

e. The sensitive nature of the data or records maintained or to which the position has access; 

f. The opportunity presented for the commission of additional offenses; and 

g. The extent to which acceptable job performance requires the trust and confidence of the employer, the University or the public. 

4. Candidate Notification of Negative Results. If a candidate is not selected based on the criminal background check results, the results will be provided and the candidate will be given a three working day time period to refute the information. Additional time extensions may be provided to the candidate at the sole discretion of the UW-La Crosse. UW-La Crosse and the criminal background check vendor will need to ensure compliance with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. 5. Keeping Records. Records gathered as a result of a criminal background check will be confidentially maintained by Human Resources separate from the applicant/employee’s general personnel record. The records will be securely maintained for a period of seven years after the position has been filled, and may be accessed only on a need-to-know basis or as required by applicable law.