Curbs on Hiring Ex-Felons in School Jobs Advance

A Senate committee Tuesday watered down and then approved legislation aimed at making schoolchildren safe from ex-felons who are hired as campus employees.

The two-bill “‘urgency” package was introduced in May, a few days after a suburban Sacramento student was slain at her high school, allegedly by a paroled ex-convict who was put on the payroll as a substitute janitor before his criminal background check was completed.

State law allows school districts to hire temporary and substitute employees pending the outcome of a background investigation by the Department of Justice, a process that can take several weeks.

The slaying of popular 18-year-old Michelle Montoya in the Rio Linda High School wood shop--allegedly by Alex Del Thomas, who was on parole for voluntary manslaughter--sent shock waves throughout California and set off legislative efforts at reform.

The companion bills by Assemblywomen Barbara Alby (R-Fair Oaks) and Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento) shot out of the Assembly in May on unanimous votes but encountered trouble in the Senate.

The Alby measure (AB 1612) proposed prohibiting school districts from hiring any nonteaching employee who had been convicted of a serious or violent felony. Current law requires teachers to pass a criminal background check before they are issued a credential.

The Ortiz bill (AB 1610) would prohibit the hiring of nonteaching applicants until the background investigation was complete, including temporary and substitute workers.

Ortiz’s bill easily cleared the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday on a 7-0 vote. But Alby’s measure met opposition, was heavily amended and then approved, 7-0.

“I got half a loaf,” Alby said later, charging that the committee’s amendments diluted safety protections for schoolchildren.

The committee agreed with Alby that no one convicted of a violent felony should be hired under any circumstance as a school district employee.

But it deleted from the bill a requirement that a criminal background examination be conducted on every current school district employee, an undertaking estimated by one worker association at $55 million.

Several committee members, including Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco), also protested as unfair the bill’s proposed lifetime ban on the hiring of workers who had committed a “serious” nonviolent felony.

For example, Burton said an 18-year-old who steals a bicycle from a garage could be convicted of burglary, which is considered a serious felony. But suppose, Burton said, that same person reformed and became a model citizen. Burton asked whether that person should be prohibited from working at a school.

“I happen to believe in redemption,” Burton told Alby.

The committee, over Alby’s reluctant agreement, amended the bill so that such a person could seek a pardon from the governor, which is rarely granted, or could ask the sentencing judge for a certificate of rehabilitation.

In each case, the ex-felon would be eligible to apply for a campus job but not be assured of getting hired.

As a practical matter, Burton and others said that, as the result of the Montoya killing, it is unlikely that any rehabilitated ex-felon would ever be hired by a school.

Both bills now go to the Senate Appropriations Committee.