The vast majority of Maine’s teachers and other educational personnel – 80 percent – have been fingerprinted and had their backgrounds checked. They cannot be unfingerprinted and their records cannot be unchecked. To pretend otherwise, as a bill to restrict the checking to those newly hired does, is deceptive and creates two classes of current teachers, benefiting neither.

Controversial from the beginning, the background checks were considered by lawmakers again this week. The new-hires bill was just one of three proposals to limit fingerprinting and background checks, which are designed to keep child abusers out of Maine schools. Eventually killing the two other bills, the House passed the new-hires proposal. The Senate initially opposed it, but then reversed itself Thursday. The needless measure faces final House and Senate votes and then heads to Gov. John Baldacci, who has rightly said he will veto the measure. Close votes in both chambers likely means a veto cannot be overridden.

Changes to the law are not necessary for two reasons. The first is simply an issue of timing. If lawmakers let the current system run its course, their objective would be met by the end of the year anyway. By then, all current teachers would have been checked and future checks would be limited to new hires.

Second, the law works, according to Gov. Baldacci and Education Commissioner Sue Gendron. Both have seen data about how many people have not been allowed to work in Maine schools for past child abuse and other convictions. The data apparently was powerful enough to convince Gov. Baldacci to back away from a campaign stance to repeal the fingerprint law. Both Gov. Baldacci and Commissioner Gendron supported legislation to allow the public to see these aggregate numbers. Unfortunately, their efforts were stymied by the Legislature’s Education Committee.

Sharing the numbers could have helped end this fight instead of leaving it as a permanent example of many school personnel feeling insulted. Teachers say they are offended by the implication that they are pedophiles. And they were upset about the hassle and time it took to get fingerprinted. But these problems largely occurred for a brief time at the beginning of the program. It was a needlessly clumsy start but would have been found acceptable had the state released numbers that demonstrated the reasons for their concern.

While vetoing this unnecessary bill, Gov. Baldacci could conclude this long debate by recognizing the state’s infliction of unintended inferences and inconvenience.