Child Protective Services doesn't regularly run criminal background checks on most of its employees, including at least 90 percent of workers who perform sensitive tasks involving abused and neglected youngsters.

Two key lawmakers, after learning of a CPS supervisor's assault conviction and an indecent exposure charge against a caseworker, said Thursday that the agency's background checks aren't sufficient.

"The technology has reached the point where there is simply no excuse for people with serious crimes falling through the cracks of our background checks," said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.

Ms. Nelson, the Senate's chief social services policy writer, said the state should run FBI fingerprint checks on all new employees who work directly with vulnerable Texans.

Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, the House's point man for human services programs, criticized CPS' policy of running Texas background checks on virtually all the people it hires.

Each year, the agency rechecks only 250 of its more than 6,600 "direct care delivery" staff.

CPS officials said they would consider changes.

"We are very carefully reviewing our background check policies and will certainly make any adjustments necessary to strengthen those policies," said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for CPS' parent agency, the Department of Family and Protective Services.

The workers who help recruit foster and adoptive parents undergo state checks each year. And all potential foster parents have a full national check.

But for many workers, once they're hired, there are no follow-ups throughout their tenure. That includes 2,000 child-abuse investigators, 1,600 "conservatorship workers" who work with children removed from their birth families, and 750 "family-based safety services workers" who try to stabilize troubled families.

CPS simply mandates that they report to supervisors any scrapes they have with the law: arrests, indictments and court dispositions involving criminal offenses.

"Clearly, relying on self-reporting is not prudent," Mr. Rose said. "I don't think it takes the adequate precautions we need for the safety of our children."

The lawmakers, responding to a TV news report this week about apparent gaps in CPS' background checks, said they'll file legislation to fix the problem next session, which begins in January.

Late Wednesday, KEYE-TV in Austin reported that of more than 9,000 employees at CPS and its parent agency, about 370 had criminal convictions. Most were for driving under the influence and writing hot checks.

Those offenses aren't an obstacle to being hired for state protective services work, Mr. Crimmins said.

The station said a CPS supervisor in El Paso pleaded guilty to assault with bodily injury against one of his family members and violation of a protective order. Mr. Crimmins said the supervisor, following CPS policy, reported his arrest to supervisors.

Also, an Austin child-abuse investigator was arrested in 1998, a year after he was hired by CPS, on a charge of indecent exposure in a public park. The employee later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct and paid a $500 fine, KEYE reported.

"This is unacceptable, troubling, frightening news," said Dallas child advocate Madeline McClure, executive director of the Texas Association for the Protection of Children.

"We have got to do better with our hiring and monitoring practices to make sure that any worker that has any contact with a child, all caseworkers, case aides, technicians, supervisors all pass background checks every six months."

Ms. McClure has urged big pay raises for CPS workers, which she says would help "thin the herd," so the state can replace "the small number that do not belong in this profession."

Ms. Nelson said that even before the TV report aired, she was drafting a bill to end a "patchwork policy" of checking backgrounds of state employees "who provide direct care to our most vulnerable citizens, including seniors, the frail and, of course, children."

She and Mr. Rose say they support FBI fingerprint checks, which cost about $44 each, of all prospective state workers dealing with sensitive populations.

CPS uses the FBI's national database only to check on job applicants who haven't lived in Texas for at least three years.

Mr. Rose also said that at a minimum, there should be annual criminal background checks by the Department of Public Safety of all CPS direct care staff. Those checks, which involve running a name through a computer, cost $1 each.

He and a Nelson spokesman said cooperation by the court system and new technological breakthroughs could lead to real-time reporting to state agencies of arrests and convictions of employees who have direct contact with vulnerable people.

That could reduce or eliminate the need for costly annual rechecking.

Mr. Crimmins defended CPS' self-reporting policy.

"I know it's been described as an honor system ... but it's not optional," he said. "We expect compliance."

Failure to report can lead to dismissal, according to a 4-year-old department policy.