New Law Requires Fingerprints of Child Care Employees

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The state of Georgia recently passed a law requiring all new and current employees to complete a fingerprint background check to work in the child care industry.

According to a release, by January 1, 2014 all new employees will have to have satisfactory national background checks on their fingerprints, and not just local records.

Georgia has more than 6,000 child care facilities, and Bright from the Start Commissioner Bobby Cagle believes the new law will decrease 30% turnover rate they face each year.

“This law actually makes it so that you have to submit a fingerprint check, which is the most secure and verifiable way of assuring that you have the person’s background from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

An expected 20,000 of the 60,000 state-wide employees will have background checks this upcoming year.

Cagle added the new rules will assure child care centers that the people they hire will “have no crimes that would prohibit them from working with children.”

Current child care employees have until 2017 to complete fingerprint background checks.

Visit the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for more information.