Dan Caudill, Caudill Seed Company — Opening Statement — Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship (July 27, 2022)

Summary

The opening statement of Dan Caudill, COO of Caudill Seed Company, Inc., before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, dated July 27, 2022. The statement describes the company's practice of second chance employment, stating that 50 of its 148 employees are second chance hires, with a breakdown by division, and that such employees normally start at $15.00 an hour with benefits. It argues that easy online access to arrest and conviction records leads to ongoing discrimination in employment, housing and medical care. It urges the committee to help limit access to such records after an appropriate amount of time rather than create new government-funded programs. The statement closes with estimates that incarceration costs about $30,000 to $35,000 per person per year and nearly $40 billion a year nationally.

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Dan Caudill
Caudill Seed Company

Opening Statement
Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
July 27, 2022


Caudill Seed Company was established in 1947 by Forrest Caudill and is a
diversified production company, marketing agricultural, reclamation and turf
products through an independent dealer network in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West
Virginia and Tennessee.

Caudill Seed Company, beginning with my father, has a long history of not
discriminating against people who may have had arrest records in the past, but had
a desire to straighten up their lives and obtain gainful employment. Caudill Seed
Company has been involved in numerous non-profit activities in the Louisville
area and has found an excellent source of quality employees by hiring individuals
that have graduated programs through the Healing Place, Volunteers of America,
Dismas Charities, etc., in giving these people second chance employment.
Statistically speaking, we have found very little difference from hiring from this
group of individuals verses people who have clean records. Many of these second
chance employees have become our most loyal and dedicated employees as a result
of being giving a second chance and have been allowed to move up through the
ranks into management positions throughout the company.

Currently, our total employees are 148 people and of that total employees, we have
exactly 50 that are second chance type people. The breakdown for our divisions is
as follows.

   •   Whole Alternative – 27 (supervisors, maintenance, pack room and
       warehouse)
   •   Seed – 13 ( warehouse, supervisor, maintenance)
   •   Sprouting - 4 ( warehouse personnel)
   •   CS Health -1 (warehouse personnel)
   •   KY Fertilizer -2 (sales and a lead warehouse person)
   •   Morehead – 2 (warehouse personnel)
   •   Oklahoma- 1 (warehouse manager)
   •   Grand total 50
Some of the above employees have been with us for many, many years and others
for just a few months. We normally start them off at $15.00 an hour with benefits
that include health insurance, dental, vision, profit sharing, 401 K and year-end
bonuses based on profitability of the company. Caudill Seed Company has been
involved with regular volunteer work at numerous non-profits dealing with the
homeless population and addiction recovery, in addition to second chance
employment, including the Healing Place, Volunteers of America, the Ice House of
Louisville, which has allowed us to recognize the need for gainful employment
after residents graduate programs offered at these and other non-profit facilities.

In the past 70’s and 80’s, we only ran background checks on people who worked in
accounting and people who were handling cash, and in order to run those
background checks we would have to hire an attorney and he would in turn either
hire attorney’s or visit all the different counties in which the individual had resided
to check with each county clerk to see if there were previous convictions. Today
these are public records and can be accessed by anyone who wants to spend $9.99
on the internet or subscribe to one of the many different agencies such as Lexus
Nexus that will pull up every public record including arrests without convictions or
were later dismissed as well as any property purchases, sales and any other public
information. These services are currently used by most medical professionals and
attorneys as well as employers and in my opinion are used to heavily discriminate
against these individuals keeping them from obtaining everything from medical to
employment as well as renting commercial or residential property. It is getting to
the point where many of the people who have graduated programs dealing with
addictions have an extremely difficult time finding quality residential apartments
and reasonable medical care as well as employment.

In 2008 and 2009 I was Vice Chair of the Healing Place and I saw firsthand how
during tough economic times that these people were the first to be discriminated
against to get employment. Even McDonalds and other fast food places were
running these background checks. This concerns me about the next downturn about
how much the current discrimination will increase as it did in 2008 and
2009. With the explosion of information technology and for the public to easily
access these records, it has created a situation where these people are facing a
lifetime of discrimination in greater ways than they were when they were
originally arrested and convicted of their misdemeanor and/or felony crimes. This,
in my opinion, is significantly increasing the penalties over what they were
originally sentenced to. I fear that with the explosion of the information
technology, that we are seeing a permanent branding of these individuals, and
perhaps the beginning of the establishment of an information based cast society
such as what India used to have in play. Something really should be done to allow
these individuals, after so much time, to have their records either completely
expunged or limiting the access of those records to police and the justice system,
who have reason to access them.

This ongoing discrimination against these individuals is lead by the federal
government and their hiring practices, which is followed closely by state, city and
county government, as well as setting standards for large and small companies
going forward to continue to heavily discriminate against these people and not
allowing them “second chance employment”. I believe the efforts of this
committee should be to help reverse the stigma and help limit access, after an
appropriate amount of time, to these records, allowing these people equal access to
non-discriminatory employment, healthcare and lifestyle opportunities that we
enjoy. This will be a more impactful approach than creating new government-
funded programs administered by the federal government, which tends not to be
very successful in solving social problems.

Interesting statistics: It is estimated that there is over 20 million convicted felons in
the United States and the cost to incarcerate these people runs on average
approximately $30,000 to $35,000 per year and that nearly $40 billion a year is
spent on incarceration in the United States per year and minority populations are
disproportionately affected.

Best Regards
Dan Caudill
COO Caudill Seed Company, Inc.


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