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Bill would limit use of criminal records in hiring public workers
TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: March 25, 2015
State Reps. Kirk Schuring, R-Canton, and Stephen Slesnick, D-Canton, have partnered to sponsor a bipartisan bill that would limit the use of criminal records in the hiring and employment practices of public employers.
“House Bill 56 is intended to ensure that ex-offenders in our state have a fair chance in seeking and securing job opportunities with public employers,” Schuring said in sponsor testimony for the bill before the House Commerce and Labor Committee.
“The bill follows a recent trend in the Ohio General Assembly to remove barriers that prevent ex-offenders from assimilating back into society as productive and self-sufficient citizens.”
If enacted, the proposed legislation would delay questions regarding past criminal activity until after the job applicant has passed the civil service exam and has been interviewed.
A background check would be conducted before the public employer proceeds with the hiring process.
“The bill would simply allow job applicants to first be evaluated based on their personal and professional qualifications, before they are defined by a past criminal record,” Schuring said.
Under the measure, a public employer would still have authority to reject an applicant if there are concerns about the applicant’s criminal record.
“The bill would simply require the public employer to state in writing why the past criminal offense would be harmful to the job,” Schuring said, adding that the bill would offer job applicants “fair warning about which offenses will ban them from a particular job.”
“The bill encourages the public employer to specifically enumerate which offenses would create an automatic bar to the posted position, based on state or federal law.”
Nothing in the proposed legislation would override pre-existing statutory barriers to particular jobs or job-related licenses.
Schuring went on to say the measure would clean up misconceptions in the state’s civil-service laws.
“In Doe v. Ronan (2010-Ohio-5072), a man with 12 years of exemplary service to Cincinnati Public Schools had been automatically dismissed solely because of a 1976 drug offense that had been sealed,” he said.
Ohio’s civil service statutes allow public employees to be dismissed for cause, including for committing a felony.
“The Ohio Supreme Court interpreted those statutes to mean a felony committed at any time in one’s life — even decades before someone became a public employee. This bill would limit those statutes to mean offenses committed while one is a civil servant,” Schuring said.
House Bill 56 is co-sponsored by more than 15 lawmakers.
The proposal has not been scheduled for additional hearings.
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