Evaluating the Adequacy of the Department of Commerce’s Pre-Employment Screening (Limited-Scope) [December 2024]

We reviewed Department of Commerce's hiring policies and procedures to determine if they were adequate for staff overseeing financial matters. This was because Commerce hired a staff member in 2020 who pleaded guilty to felonies in Pennsylvania before being hired by Commerce. Commerce officials told us they were not aware of the staff member's crimnal history. We found that Commerce’s hiring policies and procedures were not adequate to mitigate the risks associated with hiring applicants with a criminal history. This is because Commerce’s hiring policies and procedures don’t include any type of criminal history check for any jobs other than the 1 in statute. Commerce officials told us they don’t perform state-level criminal history checks on applicants because they don’t think they have the authority to perform them through the KBI. However, an alternative to KBI would be to use a Consumer Reporting Agency to perform criminal history checks. These companies may provide employment screening services that include credit checks, license verification, and criminal history information from state and federal databases. We also found that Commerce didn’t adequately document their hiring procedures for 3 of the 5 staff we reviewed. reference check summaries weren’t available for 3 of the 5 employees we reviewed, and interview notes were missing for 1 of the 5 employees we reviewed. This means we can’t determine if Commerce is following their processes consistently. State retention policies require agencies to retain hiring documentation in the full personnel file for the length of the employee’s tenure plus 3 years. However, Commerce officials told us that they don’t retain some hiring records past 3 years from the date of hire.