The city of Milford, CT is faced with an interesting problem. As the city plans to conduct background checks on employees and volunteers, the Park, Beach and Recreation Commission has a plethora of checks to run, but no one to pay for it.
As the New Haven Register reported, the commission set out to create a screening program for adults who work with children, and little headway has been made. The commission still needs to decide on virtually every detail of a screening program, including who will be screened, what they will look for and of course, who is going to pay for it.

Recreation Director William McCarthy has been given the tough task of making these decisions.

McCarthy said the slow progress is a result of an extremely complex issue that he wants to make sure is handled correctly.
“This is like wrestling with alligators here,” he said. “I’m just trying to make sure we don’t get bit.”

“There’s so much to talk about here,” said commission Vice Chairwoman Ann Fabian. “Theoretically I think it’s a good idea, but it’s a huge issue and checks and balances need to be there to protect privacy.”

Generally, the council is in agreement about a few things; that every adult who works with children should be checked, lifeguards, coaches, referees, instructors, and volunteers included, which could be as may as 300 people, at $15 to $20 per background check.

“This is another issue where we’re walking on eggshells here,” McCarthy said. “Do you ask someone who’s already volunteering their time to pay to have a background check done on themselves?”

The idea of screening employees and volunteers was a hot button in Milford after news recently broke that a youth basketball coach had an affair with a high school student on his team.

After four, yes four coaches on a youth football team were found to have criminal backgrounds, parents are (shockingly) coming to the coaches’ defense.
Derrick Jenkins, whose son plays on the team put it simply, “What happened in the past is the past.”

Parents claim that the coaches’ pasts allow them to give players honest advice about staying out of trouble.

Parent Andrea Walls explained, “I know for a fact that they’ve just really touched lives that probably would have went other directions, and I think their experience has made them better coaches.”

The coaches’ criminal records include convictions for selling cocaine, possession of cocaine, weapons offences, driving with a suspended license, grand theft, and larceny. The offenses themselves are not as far in the past at you might hope, either. One coach had records from last year, and another was recently in prison.

The Suncoast Youth Football Conference, requires only a search of the state sex offender registry. It catches would-be coaches who are sexual offenders, but not those who have committed crimes that are not sexual in nature.

The group’s four coaches have 45 arrests among them.