I think its more of a problem at the youth level (i.e. under jr. high) than it would be at the levels that most of us work through associations. That said, I'm certainly not against any kind of check.

I don't think any of us are against it. I think we're against having to pay $30+ for one when we are required to do so. If they (state or organization) requires one, they should pick up the cost. Charge a little more for the league fees to offset the costs.

Does the state buy your uniforms? Does the state pay your clinic fees? Does the state pay for your association dues/insurance? This is just another cost we should bear for the privilege of engaging in the endeavor.

I agree with Mike. When I applied for a law license, I had to pay a fee (and still pay annual fees) that, in part, covered a background check. Same when I applied for a handgun license, and so forth.

Now, I do think they should see if they can figure out a way to allow those with recent background checks from the types of licenses I mentioned above go through the system as a pass.

For you guys who are more familiar with these checks that I am, what does the $30 (or whatever the cost) go towards? Is it strictly the time spent by the law enforcement officer to go through the process? If this is the case and the price is a factor, you might find a few officers who would be willing to do this in their off-the-clock time for much cheaper...especially if they are active or retired officials.

Just a thought.

The uniform is not the same as a background check. If you are protecting your kids, then you should pay for the background check. Are you going to give a background check to every fan that comes into your arena? Of course they are not. If schools really wanted to, they could keep the kids and the officials completely away from each other, but they often put us right next to each other where all kinds of issues of that close proximity could be a problem and hurting the kids from the officiating point of view is likely not the most inappropriate. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone just walked into the officiating locker room when I was getting dressed and almost completely naked.

Peace

The FBI charges a fee to agencies/companies which send in fingerprints for criminal history checks using the nationwide fingerprint database. I think the fee is currently $18. Many states have their own fingerprint repositories and typically charge a fee for checks of them. There is no way you are getting much more than a standard check of fingerprints for $30. A "real" background investigation will costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Yeah, I guess I never realized that. I had to pay for my background check when I applied for my teaching license. But just recently, my district performed a separate background check on every teacher, which I didn't have to pay for.

My problem with the Ontario bill was the wording in that anyone who hires an official has to get the background check done. So in practice this would mean that each league and even some individual teams would ALL have to get the check done. There is no room for having a centralized agent do the clearing in the wording. Technically, you could have a single agent hire the officials for all the contests to get around having them all do it.

My problem with the process in general is suppose an official when he was young and 18 makes a mistake and gets a DWI conviction. Thirty years later when those mistakes are long behind him he has to allow the leagues that hire him to know about this mistake and have it possibly bar him from officiating their games?

The only way this could work is to have a set of offences that would make an official fail their certification and then have a central body do the check so as to preserve the officials privacy.

You're not "hired" by the teams or the leagues, your local Officials Association "hires" you. They would be the one's doing the background checks, not the teams.

There's a big difference between a DWI conviction when you're young and stupid, and being a sexual predator when you're a "mature" adult.