Fine, as long as the proposal includes *ALL* members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the government. Unfortunately, that requirement would be the kiss of death for this proposal.

We have drug testing so how much is this going to cost the tax payers and is this the same HR guy who said the 4 tens would have no cost to either the state of Utah nor the stateemployees. I would not believe a word out of his mouth. Make sure the court will back you up are the state will pay.

Drug testing does not indicate when that substance was ingested, how much, how often, or if the person was under the influence of drugs at the time of testing or while on the job. It also does not tell if the person is impaired, can’t handle their responsibilities, carry out his or her parenting responsibilities, or if they suffers from an addiction disorder (or is simply a one-time or occasional drug taker).

Anyone who receives money from the government should take a drug test, especially welfare recipiants.

Yes lets waste gobs of money on drug tests on state employees. This is a good way to squander all the money the state saves. how about taking that money and invest it in a security protocol or systems that actually protects that information. Even if you did use drugs how does that stop identity theft. Using drugs does not make you a thief and vice versa. This makes 0 sense. Drug test employees for other reasons, but to stop identity theft? WOW

Do it!

The frightening part is that it has taken the State of Utah this long to start drug testing employees, and now only a select group. Most major corporations started random drug screening over twenty years ago. Some use it for security purposes, others for safety, and others for risk management. But every resident of Utah should be able to rest assured that the State of Utah is taking every reasonable precaution to assure that those handling our personal information will not misuse it.

Let's get our druged up civil workers out. Including those in office or behind the bench as JUDGES.

Then let's get people in their places that can handle the job without turning to drugs.

BH you need to get out more. State should run like a business. In my experience, forty percent of companies have pre-employment drug testing. After this, employees are rarely tested unless there is an accident.

It's a matter of cost to benefit. You can use cocaine on Friday night and pass a test on Monday. The same is true for all but Marijuana.

You are going to test all employees. There are a few users. The users know the game. You spend a lot of money with little to show for spending it.

Ever heard of Steven Covey? "Begin with a goal in mind." What's your goal? Your managers are paid the big bucks to track performance metrics. Your goal should be getting the job done and serving your customer's needs. You metric should be designed to measure this.

Addiction to prescription drugs and alchohol is a bigger problem in Utah than illegal drugs. Lets get rid of all untrustworthy employees who are a threat to the system.

Random drug testing is only fair and equal when all state employees are included.That includes the governor on down the line.too be conducted by a professional drug testing company.If they have nothing they sould not OBJECT.

DO IT!
DO IT!
DO IT!
DO IT!

...do it.

If the legislators were constantly stoned, maybe they wouldn't have time to pass bad laws.

Something doesn't sound right about this.

Are they trying to stop drug abuse or is something else going on?

If they want to catch drug abusers why don't they look at arrest records for drug abusers; both illegal and legal drugs. Like someone above said, legal drugs are abused more than any others in Utah.

The biggest problem with this is that the state is an "old boy network". There are many departments in the state where someone can look at personal information for any reason. This happened all the time when I worked for a department that had access to personal information. If they really wanted to do this, someone outside of the state should do the testing to everyone and just make the findings public. People who work for the state are public servants correct? If people could find out if someone working for the state was looking their personal information it would shake the apathy out of the public. Anyway the state would regulate itself and only use it as a tool for their own means costing taxpayer money.

If someone were to do just a breathalyser test when staff were at work, it would get rid of more staff then any expensive system of random drug testing.

IF the State of Utah believes it has a problem connected to drug usage and ID theft, fix the loopholes!

Hackers, open screens, paperwork, etc, all are avenues to ID theft....and you can blame the credit card companies for forcing merchants/agencies to maintain the records of OUR personal data!

Fix the system, have EVERYONE eligible for drug testing (legal or illegal drugs) including the many legislators who make drugged-up public statements - or forget it.

Are only drug users likely to do identity theft? What if the state employee is drug free, but sells the information to someone that uses it for drugs or whatever. How is the drug test going to prevent that? Seems like a big waste of money, when there are other ways of stopping identity theft.

So if a state-employee comes up hot on a drug test, they'll be charged with identity theft? I don't see the connection. It sounds like a back-door excuse for suspicionless testing to me.

Another idiotic, moronic idea from the supposedly "smart" highly paid bunch who are in charge up at the state. What if the employees doing the identity theft don't use drugs, or what if they stop using drugs while they do the identity theft? I hope the legislators see through this and put a stop to it before it gets started. The private co's that do so much testing of their employees see very few arrests, but they do it mainly for liability issues. The legislature should take the money proposed to spend on drug tests and put it to some use that would ACTUALLY benefit the state. Like the article said, the state already has the ability to test if they have a reasonable suspicion. I wonder if one of these lamebrain bureaucrats has a brother-in-law running a testing company?

if all of a sudden, we see a big turn over in State employment, then we'll know.....LOL!!

Someone suggested that all welfare recipients should be drug-tested. AMEN! I see too many people abusing the welfare system. Why don't we make changes to the welfare system instead of randomly drug-testing state employees.

So, state workers are cheats because they will eventually only work 8 hrs of their 10 hr workday and/or are drug addicts/troublemakers? Doesn't Mr. Herring have policies and procedures in place to be sure the most qualified people are hired on to serve us? Should we be worred about the state workers or the department head?

Okay Anonymous, I don't know where you work but I can promise you the people I work with can pass a breathalyzer test any time of the day. And as for Well, don't count on seeing a huge turnover in State Employees. Why is it that state employees seem to be getting accused of so many things. We are people, just like you only we happen to work for the State. Give me a break. You guys are getting ridiculous. I would not balk at any testing. The problem is, even prescription medications or over the counter cold and cough medicines show up. Do you realize what it could cost the tax payer to have all of these verified and checked out.

Police state.

There is no correlation between identity theft and drug usage. If a drug user needed to make money (and they're not the only ones who need it), odds are they won't go to work for the state (for however many YEARS it takes to gain enough trust to be allowed near such information) just so they could steal others' identities. Further, blaming the problem on amphetamines seems ridiculous. There is no drug test that solely detects MA, and marijuana stays in one's system for 30 days. The State will just use this as an excuse to fire otherwise productive drug users who either use without intention to cause harm or happened to use a month ago.

Let's be rational here, the best way to stop identity theft is to limit access to important information. Call center employees that work for credit card companies are prohibited from having methods of retaining information near their workplace (e.g. no pens or paper), why can't we do the same with state employees rather than throwing more money at the problem and firing innocent people who did no harm (and certainly committed no act of identity theft).

It seams I'm gonna hav 2 fynd anuder gubernment organizayshun 2 werk fur.

I think Mr. Herring has too much time on his hands coming up with crazy things to do to public employees. I can't help feeling like he has some kind of hidden agenda. Like making state employees look bad so he can change the whole system and also privatize state jobs. He must have a company he wants to see take it over for whatever reason he has in his sights. Maybe he just has some legislator he's covering for that has HIS own personal agenda. Seems like Herring has been real busy attacking the employment system and now the employees. Hmmmm. What's up Jeff?

Anonymous, you are just rude and ignorant.

To Anonymous 4:51pm above:
Don't wurry you probly wont git elected for anuther term.

"one time or occasional user"???? What are you talking about? It doesn't matter how many times someone does it, they shouldn't be working in our government offices. Or anywhere else for that matter. Do it. If they can waste millions on other ridiculous expenses, they can find a way to budget this in.

If the reasons are to protect people from identity theft...then they have to do the randomization on a select group because they could get sued if they are targeting people that don't even have access to personal information. I don't know that it will prevent the problem of identity theft but I think it's a good idea and will probably weed out those individuals who might be using identity theft to feed their drug issues.

Test them and if they are doing illegal drugs (One time offender? Are you serious?) then get them help like other professions do. If they don't respond, they can work for someone else.

So much for those Friday parties!

Why aren't these people randomly tested already? When I worked for a school district in Utah not only was ther pre-employment but random testing as well. Any government employee should work under the same requirements. Anyone can clean up for a pre-employment test but do it over the long haul. We now live in Nevada where the mining companies keep on record FOREVER anyone who has failed a drug test and none will employ them be it direct employee or contractor. It amazes me that prople think they have a right not to be drug tested. If you have a legal prescription you have nothing to worry about. If you're using illegal drugs better forget it.

Sounds like Herring has a pile of solutions looking for problems and he'll do anything to pad his resume. Or is the Gov. just trying to look presidential?