Check the Council’s Background

The City Council last week won the year’s award for bad timing by passing new hiring protections for excons, even as a major city contractor landed in hot water for . . . hiring excons.

We’re talking about the Fair Chance Act, ak a the “ban the box” bill: To address a supposedly major problem — job discrimination against excons — this will forbid potential employers from asking about an applicant’s criminal background until after they’ve made a conditional job offer.

This, when New York state already has one of the nation’s strongest antidiscrimination statutes for excons seeking work.

The council’s extreme “don’t ask ’ til you’re about to hire” mandate will waste a lot of time for employers and applicants — in cases, for example, where you can’t legally hire an excon. It’s also an open invitation to nuisance lawsuits over hiring.

Then there’s the timing issue. The very day the council passed this bill, the Department of Investigation slapped the Department of Correction for failing to do background checks over seven years on hundreds of healthcare workers at Rikers.

Corizon Health, an outside contractor, failed to do its employee screening and the DOC let fingerprint cards from the city’s own checks pile up. The screwup was only exposed after a nurse was caught smuggling alcohol to inmates.

At least eight felons got jobs at Rikers — including a murderer and a kidnapper.

Ironically, violence at Rikers is a major priority for Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito.

Even after the fingerprint screwup surfaced in October, Rikers didn’t get the background checks done until a month ago.

On the bright side, the “ban the box” bill may make Rikers safer than your work place.