The thought process behind the now-required background checks is surely great, however, the execution is severely lacking. 

In the 20 years that 16 years that I have been in this particular position, we have never endured such a severe staff shortage. It is surely not for lack of trying either. The current process is fine...as long as the candidate has only lived in Virginia. The Virginia State Police fingerprint process has become streamlined and the results do come relatively fast. It is the out-of-state process that needed to be reviewed. With each state requiring their own documents and process, it can take weeks (a month and a half for two of my employees) for all of the required results to be returned before a candidate may begin. We have lost more candidates than we have hired because the background check hurdles and the time it takes to get them returned. What I do not understand is why an employee who has only lived in Virginia has to only have criminal fingerprints done before beginning with an employer and their child abuse and neglect registry background check can be done WHILE they are employed. However, if they have lived in another state, we must wait for ALL of those are returned before the hiring process has begun.  

Portability of ALL background checks, Virginia and out-of-state, would help to mitigate the amount of time spent waiting for new ones to come back. The current time frame in which portability would be allowed is too small though.