By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

All would-be teachers, bus drivers and substitutes will soon have to pay to get a job.

Starting next month, the state will stop picking up the $55 fee for the fingerprinting and criminal background checks it requires of school employees. The workers themselves will have to pay.

All school staff must be fingerprinted and pass a background check, including teachers, secretaries, teaching assistants, bus drivers and cafeteria workers. Fingerprinting is required only once. Workers have to undergo a second background check if there’s a lag between school jobs.

Since current school employees have already gone through background checks, Maine’s 7,000 applicants and new hires will be most affected. Some school officials worry that the $55 fee will deter people from applying for low-paying jobs and make hard-to-fill positions even more difficult to fill.

“For substitute bus drivers it’s a whole day’s pay. Maybe when you take out taxes, it’s more than a day’s pay,” said School Union 44 Superintendent Paul Malinski, who oversees schools in Litchfield, Sabattus and Wales.

Maine stands to save nearly $400,000 a year by passing the cost on to workers. It will also make money by doubling the fees it charges to certify teachers and administrators every five years.

“It helped balance the budget,” said Greg Scott, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Education.

Malinski understands why the state decided to stop paying for background checks.

“But I think it’s a burden for people,” he said.

In SAD 17, Assistant Superintendent Mark LaRoach agrees. His Oxford-area school system hires hundreds of people, including about 100 substitute teachers, every year. Those subs make about $55 a day. Now they’ll have to pay $55 before they ever step into a classroom.

“It’s just one more thing for them,” LaRoach said.

Both Malinski and LaRoach will discuss the possibility of reimbursing new employees for the cost of their background checks. So will officials in Lewiston and Auburn.

But this year’s school budgets are set. It will be difficult to shift money around to pay for a new expense, especially by Sept. 17, when the change takes effect.

Malinski wondered why the state reversed its rules with so little notice. He found out Wednesday.

“The Legislature could have said, You need to budget for it because in July of ’07 this is going to be a reality,'” he said.

Even if they do want to reimburse their staff, some area school systems aren’t sure they’ll ever be able to afford it.

The state’s largest teachers union think it’s unfair for the state to shift the cost to anyone.

When Maine first required fingerprinting and background checks in the late 1990s, individuals had to pay for their own. Soon after, the Maine Education Association fought to repeal the controversial law because initially workers had to pay and because school employees considered it demeaning and unnecessary.

The union lost the battle to repeal the law, but it did succeed in getting the state to pay. The state has paid the fees for nearly five years.

Executive Director Mark Gray said the union will go back to the Legislature and fight again.

“If the state is going to require fingerprinting, they should, at a minimum, pay for it,” he said.

Other states also charge school employees for fingerprinting and background checks, according to Maine Department of Education and Maine Education Association spokesmen. They could not verify which states.

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