Fingerprinting

Buster and Sister

I work for a non-profit organization in Louisiana. We fingerprint all employees who come in contact with children. We have seasonal hirings of about 400-600 annually. I have several questions that I need some answers: 1) Can we pass the fingerprinting cost back to our employees? Is that legal?
2) Should we maintain the fingerprint cards and information in a separate file or in their personnel file?

Don D

I don't know if you can pass the cost on to the ee but would not suggest it. That would be akin to passing back the drug screen costs to the ee when it's for the company's use and benefit. I see no reason why you cannot put the print card in the personnel file. It reveals no confidential information to reviewers and is not medical. Don't create another file. You probably already have enough files if you're in childcare.

AnneHa

When fingerprinting was a requirement here, we gave the blank sheet to the candidate, post-offer, and asked them to take it to a local law enforcement agency to be completed. They put up the $6.00 fee upfront, brought in a receipt and were reimbursed. When the fees went up to $40.00 just to have the prints taken (not the actual check itself) we went to a different method of background check.

Nat

If you are required to do fingerprinting I don't think you can pass that cost to employees. We are a long-term care facility and are required to fingerprint anyone who has lived in our state less than 5 years and are required to absorb this expense. I'm in North Carolina though. The laws in your state may be different.

Don D

I'm curious and this is admittedly a dumb question; but, what do you do with the fingerprinting? Is this part of a background that you must run or are the prints retained for some future purpose in the event of an activity that may occur at your facility.......or both?

Theresa Gegen TX

Your state law will determine whether you can pass the costs. Several states now have laws that say that an employer cannot pass the costs of preemployment screening. Will the added interest in doing so by employers, I could see more states passing those types of laws in the future.

Good Luck!

Leslie

As a state requirement, we have an entity that fingerprints the pre-employee and then the state utilizes those and an extensive form the pre-employee completes to perform a background check. The state then certifies the employee. We charge back the employee for the certification but not for the fingerprinting.

HR never has the fingerprints in their possession so we don't have to worry about what to do with them.

Nat

We send our applicants to the local sherrif's department to get the fingerprints. They bring the cards back to us and we send to SBI. They in return do background checks and send back the fingerprint cards and a statement as to whether the applicant has convictions in North Carolina. We then file the fingerprint cards in their confidential file. Sounds like a cumbersome process but we're required to do this through the SBI.