Stopping financial misconduct with a multi-layered program
The Columbia (MO) Tribune has a story about how the University of Missouri is working to stop fiscal misconduct with a multi-layered program that even involves the public. The story focuses on the new fraud reporting hotline as well as other techniques like increased background checks. Let’s review what’s going on and how you can learn from it.
The University is trying to curb and catch “financial misconduct.” That phrase covers a number of offenses. They include theft and fraud, of course, but also statements or actions that violate internal financial policies, unlawful gifts, bribes, misuse of funds under grants or contracts, and, in some cases, the destruction of financial documents.
The tip line will be outsourced and it’s only one of a number of actions that the University is taking. They’re paying more attention to who they hire, for example.
The University has done pre-employment background checks for some time, but only for offenses committed in Missouri. Now they’ll be doing a national criminal background check as well as reviewing the Missouri Sex Offender Registry.
Also new is the policy of doing background checks on faculty. Before, only staff members were investigated and faculty members were, in essence, deemed to be above suspicion.
Staff will now be investigated as part of the hiring process, just like before. But they’ll also be subject to scrutiny when they are promoted or transferred outside their department.
Even though the tip line is getting most of the press, it the background checking that will be most effective in […]
Sometimes all you can do is chuckle: Wikipedia
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that purports to know about almost everything, seems to have missed important information about one of its own. The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit arm of Wikipedia.
The Foundation’s now-former COO, Carolyn Bothwell Doran was originally hired after being sent over as a part-time bookkeeper by a temp agency. It’s not clear how she rose to the COO position.
As COO, Doran was responsible for personnel management, with access to sensitive personal information. She was responsible for financial management with access to financial records. She prepared and filed the foundation’s tax return. That’s the kind of person you want to be able to trust.
But Doran had a secret. Actually, she had several secrets.
She was on probation for a 2004 hit-and-run accident. She served seven months in jail for that one, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. Doran also had multiple drunken-driving convictions, and a record that included theft, writing bad checks and wounding her boyfriend with a gunshot to the chest.
Well, Wikipedia has since fired her. The web site profy.com reports on the reaction of Wikipedia founder Jimmie Wales and adds their own acerbic comment on the benefits of background checks.
Wales’ message to the Wikipedia community was laughable:
“We are very saddened and hurt by these shocking revelations. Of course we are doing soul searching about what we could have done different.”
Soul searching? How about a simple background check?
Take the following bits of wisdom away from this. Bit number one: even really smart […]
We’re going to evacuate you, but first …
During the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, lots of criminals wound up among good people on buses and in shelters. Still others used the occasion as an opportunity to get out of town and not come back. In Texas they think they have a solution for both those problems.
The Houston Chronicle story headlined: “Next time, evacuees subject to criminal checks,” leads with the following. “Texans seeking to escape the next hurricane or state emergency by evacuation bus will first be submitted to criminal background checks, the state’s emergency management director says.”
There are several different ways you might want to respond to this story. One is to imagine a rank of buses with signs on them. “Special Needs” one might say. Another bus would be marked for “The Elderly.” And there would be a bus for “Criminals, Parolees, and Other Evil Doers.”
That was my first reaction. I imagined a scene like a giant school field trip, but with different signs on the buses. Then, I got to thinking about how all this was going to work
I like the intent of what Texas wants to do. The idea is to keep vulnerable people like children, the disabled, and the elderly safe from predators. Fair enough. But how’s it going to work in practice? Let’s consider the details.
ATT has contracted with the state to create a system that will provide scannable wristbands for evacuees. Identification information will be entered at the evacuation assembly point. The wristbands will be scanned when a […]
SAT scores, transcript, background check
I’ve got a nephew who’s going to college with the help of several scholarships. Those scholarships are contingent on good behavior. If he gets arrested for something like underage drinking, for example, his scholarships can be pulled. Many colleges have similar policies.
Now some college administrators are thinking about criminal background checks as part of the admissions process. KHTV in Little Rock, Arkansas, reports that “What you do as a kid could soon determine your future. Because of violent incidents, like the Virginia Tech shootings, some colleges and universities are considering adding background checks to the admission process. And even non-criminal offenses may come up in determining scholarship awards.”
Today many colleges ask applicants about past misbehavior. It’s all on the honor system, though because nobody checks what the applicants tell them.
Most of the people applying to college out of high school are sixteen or seventeen years old. In most states, according to Traci Truly in her Legal Guide for Teens, the age at which you are tried as an adult is either seventeen or eighteen. Whatever legal troubles most applicants have had was handled under the juvenile justice system and the records are likely to be sealed.
But before you let your teen breathe a sigh of relief, consider this. If the background check turns up the fact of a juvenile record, the college can ask for details as a condition of continuing the application or scholarship award process. The college can also make lying on the application for admission or […]
Thinking about using Facebook or MySpace for background checks?
The SmartMoney web site has lots of good advice for job seekers. But in an article titled “Facebook Profiles Can Foil Job Searches” I found some good advice for employers, especially those considering using the social networking sites for part of background check on younger applicants.
Jeanine DeBacker, an employment lawyer with Wendel Rosen Black & Dean in Oakland, Calif., says she often cautions her clients — employers and their human-resource managers concerned about the legality of conducting online background screenings of potential employees — ‘to remember that people coming into the work force don’t always know the proper way to behave. That’s not new.’ The difference now is that youthful (and sometimes not-so-youthful) indiscretions are made permanent in cyberspace for all to see.
That’s good advice, since more and more employers are at least considering using the social networking sites as part of their screening process. CareerBuilder.com surveyed more than 1,150 hiring managers in 2006. Twenty-five percent used search engines to screen applicants. Ten percent used social networking sites. I’m sure those figures are higher today.
Remember this. Kids have acted stupidly throughout the ages. I know I contributed to that great tradition. You’re going to reduce your potential talent pool to zero if you take every stupid act by a young person as evidence of a character flaw.
Social networking sites and web searches should be part of your process. Just remember that the information on them is not always reliable. Other information on those sites may be accurate but not […]
Sometimes all you can do is chuckle: John Mark Karr
Fox News reports that John Mark Karr is serious about proving that he has no convictions in Alabama, where he asked for a background check from the Birmingham Police Department. It seems like only yesterday, but it was actually a year ago that John Mark Carr was all over the news.
You may recall that he confessed to killing little JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado ten years before. Since Karr was in Thailand at the time, the confession got him a flight home at US expense and we got to see pictures of him sipping a cool drink during the flight. The flight took him to Los Angeles and another took him to Boulder while we all waited to find out what would happen next.
What happened next was nothing. The authorities determined that he made up his confession. They let him go. And, for the most part, he disappeared from media radar.
Then, in early December, Karr wandered into the Birmingham Police station and asked for a document showing that he had no criminal convictions in Alabama. Karr said he needed the background check as part of a job search in Georgia.
Like Karr’s previous escapades, this one left me shaking my head. What employer in his right mind would accept a document from an applicant attesting to his purity?
What employer would rely on a background check that only covered the state of Alabama, especially if the employer was in Georgia?
And is there an employer anywhere in the developed world that […]