Elected officials, especially mayors and city or town council members, tend to be stripped politically naked during the messy process we call "running for public office." If there is something to know about a candidate - good, bad, or merely curious - it will tend to turn up in the public discussion before the levers are pulled at the polls.

The same can't be said for mid-level public executives and managers, who serve by appointment, and who, for the most part, may not even be known to the public until the people responsible for hiring them can claim to be reasonably certain that they will stand up to the usually brief exposure they'll receive after their consideration is made public.

In the public sector, some local police departments are quite able to conduct background investigations. They generally do so for their own police officer candidates. But background investigations for non-police positions may not be a type of activity that most small communities and even some large communities are routinely set up to conduct. At the same time, the personal, professional, and public liability issues public officials may have to grapple with in the event of a crisis brought on by the bad conduct of subordinate officials should compel great care in the initial selection of those subordinate officials.

It's one thing to discover down the road that the director of a department is an avid cross-dresser in the privacy of his own closet. It's quite another to discover down the road that a department head, while employed by a small city in New Jersey five years ago, negotiated his way out of a charge of receiving bribes from contractors doing business with that city, a circumstance which may not show up in typical police and court records searches.

A candidate for a job may be someone who could have serious marital problems, who may have a fairly well camouflaged gambling or drinking problem, who may have had to fend off charges of sexual harassment or racial discrimination, or who, as a manager, may have shown the tendency to sow dissension and unrest among employees.

What can go wrong?

You check references. The references tell you that J. Dufus McCoy would make a great public works manager, that Spin City or Zilch, Inc., really was sorry to lose him. Only after Dufus is accused in his new job of the sexual harassment of two female employees do you decide to delve deeper into his background.

Then you discover that the two "supervisors" you spoke to about his previous performance in Spin City actually were two friends of his in the department where he previously worked who were set up to lie for him.

An employer never should rely only on the references supplied by an applicant. Frankly, the best and most reliable references often come from the candidate's former co-workers, those he has not himself identified as references. They may not only be willing to tell you what they know, they may know more than even the applicant suspects they know.

Looking For Help:

Extensions and additions to the coverage provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1967, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other legislation make it impossible to disqualify a candidate for public or private sector employment because of alcohol, drug, and psychological problems. In many circumstances, it may even be inappropriate under the law to ask questions relating to a disability, unless it specifically relates to the requirements of the job.

The restrictions in law notwithstanding, an outside investigator employed to conduct a thorough background investigation is under no requirement, legal or otherwise, to avoid finding arrest and/or court records relating to DUI, drug charges, domestic abuse, or other problems and reporting the results of the investigation to the client.

An outside investigator also is under no obligation to avoid taking down information from any source that may indicate behavioral problems short of violations of law, particularly those that may not be found in police or court records.

Discreet, Thorough,
Accurate & Creative

• Eight years in the Denver& Jefferson District Attorney's Offices
  
  
• The only private investigative agency in Colorado to be hired by the Denver Election Commission to investigate allegations of campaign fraud.
  
  
• Broad Knowledge of criminal & civil law, insurance regulations, and common sense acquired through 20 years of investigative experience.
  
  
• One of the very few investigative firms in Colorado to carry $1 million in liability insurance.
  
  
• More than 20,000 civil and criminal investigations.
  
  
• Associate Member: Colorado and Denver Bar Associations.
  
  
• Member: World Association of Detectives, Metropolitan Law Enforcement Agency, Intelnet, ION, NCISS National Association of Legal Investigators.