‘Casual hire’ policy at DOE is too casual

Call us old-fashioned, but we firmly believe that background checks on prospective employees be done before they are hired — not after they are already on the job, if ever.

And surely, this should apply especially if the new hire is to work among children.

On all these counts, and more, the public school system is failing routinely and dismally when it comes to its "casual hire" system, which employed some 22,000 temporary workers statewide last year with alarming laxity.

In finding the schools’ casual-worker hiring and payroll system "unacceptable," a Department of Education internal audit called for immediate action to mitigate the department’s risk exposure. Among key findings:

» Many casual hires started working before proper vetting and receiving DOE clearance, a process of two days to two months that includes a background check.

» The recruitment process has no policy or procedures, so schools can hire a casual worker "without justification and with less regulation" than a salaried employee.

Casual hires usually work up to 19 hours a week, and some work for multiple stints during the year in jobs such as part-time teachers, tutors, coaches and janitors.

» Overall lack of oversight, monitoring and accountability at the school level, as well as insufficient controls throughout. In some cases, required employee applications and documents were not submitted or maintained.

Casual hires are made at the discretion of school principals, and much can be said in support of autonomy for principals and other top campus administrators.

With such flexibility, however, must come tighter responsibility to keep school operations safe, efficient, justifiable and above-board.

That needs to include better vetting and hiring of casual employees — they account for 12 percent of state funds spent at the school level, or $91 million in fiscal 2012.

Without sound hiring practices, the audit noted, there is potential for fraud and abuse, as well as possible violation of state and federal employment laws.

Further, the report reveals a system with so many basic, significant deficiencies that it reads like an open secret.

The fact that 40 percent of 271 recent casual hires were allowed to start working before receiving Human Resources clearance suggests a widespread, systemic subculture operating independently of policy-making bureaucrats.

In profound understatement, Doug Murata, assistant superintendent for the DOE Office of Human Resources, said: "We’re using an old hiring and payment system and have it scheduled for upgrade. In the meantime, now that we know there is a rather serious problem … we can develop manual work-arounds. We’re updating our procedures."

If it took this audit to discover such a pervasive, serious disconnect between campus practices and the DOE central office, that in itself is cause for alarm. It begs the reasonable question that if such poor protocols over the "casual hire" system have been allowed and only now discovered, what other proprieties or controls are lacking or ignored?

School Board Chairman Don Horner signaled as much, telling Star-Advertiser reporter Mary Vorsino that the problems found in the audit are symptomatic of other systemic challenges at the DOE, including inadequate personnel tracking and pre-employment systems.

"We’re asking the principals to do all the hires without the technology and the infrastructure to support them," he said.

Antiquated technology systems do appear to bear substantial blame for gaps in "casual hire" procedure and record-keeping — but not for all of them. Deficient habits leading to sloppy, even nonexistent, paper work need to be shored up.

The harsh findings of this audit have been readily acknowledged, now stirring a flurry of activity in the DOE’s Human Resources, Personnel Management and Information Services branches. Good.

The "casual hire" system needs immediate, fundamental fixes and consequences attached; it remains to be seen if adherence will indeed result on the campus level.