Posted: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 6:00 pm
State government keeps making it difficult to develop much confidence in its personnel practices. The latest stumble is the on-again, off-again job offer for a key position in Nebraska's revamped mental health system.
The process seemed to be going smoothly after officials in the Health and Human Services System winnowed 87 applications and picked Oklahoman Wayne McGuire.
The process started going off track when someone "Googled" McGuire on the Internet, which means typing his name into the Google search engine to see what can be found online.
The Google search it takes mere seconds turned up that McGuire had been convicted in Rwanda for the murder of famed researcher Dian Fossey, subject of the movie "Gorillas in the Mist."
That was news to the officials who made the hiring decision. Meanwhile, the hiring process ground on, and the department announced that McGuire had been selected for the $47,000-a-year post in which he would be an advocate for mental health system consumers.
A hiccup or two later, the job offer was withdrawn. Soon recriminations were flying. On Wednesday, Gov. Dave Heineman said he was displeased by the manner in which the hiring was handled.
Most people will have some measure of sympathy for McGuire. Few people outside of Rwanda believe that McGuire had anything to do with Fossey's death. McGuire, who was Fossey's assistant, is widely viewed as a scapegoat chosen by Rwandan government officials because it conveniently allowed them to forgo further investigation.
But McGuire shares some responsibility for the problem that developed during his hiring. On his hiring application McGuire said he had no convictions. By answering yes McGuire could have confronted the issue on his own terms. Conceivably, the Rwandan conviction would have become a nonissue.
The episode once again raises questions about the thoroughness of state government's background checks. It was less than a year ago that red-faced HHS officials admitted that a thrice-convicted felon, Rock Mueller, wrangled his way into a well-paid state position at the same time he was collecting a paycheck from a company whose contract he oversaw. Mueller's resume was in part pure fabrication.
Officials presumably already check official databases for criminal records. Doing a quick search on the Internet before a key hire also should have been standard procedure.
Department officials say a Google search will be implemented in the future for those seeking higher pay grades. But why do state officials have to learn everything the hard way? Taxpayers are getting tired of this sort of embarrassment.