When Congress enacted the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 in December 2019, Congress included the Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act of 2019 (the Act). The Act, in relevant part, restricts federal contractors from requesting criminal history information from certain job applicants until after the applicant has received a conditional offer of employment. While the Act was enacted back in 2019, it applies only "to contracts awarded pursuant to solicitations issued after" December 20, 2021. As contractors are now starting to be awarded contracts subject to the Act, now is a good time for a reminder of the Act's requirements.
The purpose of the Act is to delay inquiries into the criminal history record information of certain job applicants until later in the hiring process to provide a better opportunity for job applicants with a criminal history to compete for a federal job.
The Act provides that a "contractor may not verbally or through written form request the disclosure of criminal history record information regarding an applicant for a position related to work under such contract before such contractor extends a conditional offer to the applicant." The term "criminal history record information" refers to information about individuals collected by the criminal justice agencies regarding arrests, indictments, information or other criminal charges, dispositions, sentencing, correction and release.
...
Hospitals will likely spend more to protect themselves from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ expanded powers to kick them out of government health programs, which would be ruinous f...