Dirty fingers

Maine’s commissioner of education became the first educator to soil his fingers in the pursuit of the criminal this week when he was fingerprinted and his background was checked for illegal behavior, such as child molestation. Given the limited amount of time the commissioner spends in one-on-one contact with students, his fingerprinting probably was as much a show of team spirit as actual need. As was his paying for the privilege, which everyone affected by the law must do and which remains its least-appealing aspect.

Commissioner Duke Albanese began a program that eventually will reach 23,000 teachers, administrators, secretaries, business managers, bus drivers and mechanics, food-service people, custodians and just about anyone else who is paid by a school district. Though there is no evidence that these people have more private access to children than your average 7-11 clerk does and there is evidence that school personnel are less likely than the public at large to molest children, the Legislature thinks the background checks are important and no doubt so do many members of the public.

The question, however, remains over who should pay the $49 for each school staff member to be fingerprinted and checked. The fact that lawmakers could find no money in a budget with a substantial surplus is more than troubling. They claim the program is important for the protection of children, yet apparently not so important that it was worth funding.

This means the Legislature and Gov. Angus King have, in effect, approved a program that is supposed to help children and will raise the money for the program through a tax that targets 23,000 people who made the mistake of being employed in fields that help children.

They tax educators and school staff, of course, because it is convenient and because if they taxed any other group, that group would demand to know whether the program was really necessary. That would raise all sorts of complications, and what with everyone being busy helping children, no one really needs complications just now.