BY CHELYEN DAVIS

RICHMOND

They've put in bills that would require drug tests or at least drug screenings for recipients of public assistance and unemployment.

Del. Margaret Ransone, R-Westmoreland, has a bill that would require people to get their own drug tests and provide the results to the Virginia Employment Commission when applying for unemployment benefits.

Ransone said drug testing would be "a resume-builder" because employers could be assured that potential hires had been drug-free for at least as long as they'd been unemployed.

She said "making sure that people are clean that are receiving these benefits" is important, and that drug tests could indicate to employers that their hires are responsible and trustworthy.

"It's really good to have the character skills," Ransone said. "It's just a good notion to consider that quality in a person that they're not using drugs."

Ransone's bill requires unemployment applicants themselves to pay for and provide the drug tests, so the testing itself wouldn't cost the state money.

However, the tax department has filed a fiscal impact statement on the bill suggesting it might increase the employment commission's costs by $1 million a year--for the time and staff required to notify applicants about the drug-test requirement, review the test results and advise those who don't pass of their options.

The law says that anyone who applies for unemployment benefits and is denied has the right to appeal.

The fiscal statement says that the VEC gets an annual average of 402,404 claims, and that the drug test would add two minutes to the review time of each claim. Over the year, that's more than 13,000 hours of work. The average full-time VEC employee works 2,080 hours a year, so the statement estimates 6.5 new full-time positions would be needed to cover the additional work.

Sen. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson, has a more limited bill to check unemployment recipients for drugs. It requires a screening to determine the likelihood that the applicant is a drug user before moving on to a test, and bars someone from receiving unemployment benefits for six months if they fail the test or refuse to submit to a screening.