Gov. Jim Doyle signed legislation Tuesday giving state education officials greater financial oversight of Milwaukee voucher schools but vetoed a bill that would have required the schools to do background checks on employees.

Doyle also vetoed legislation that would have changed eligibility requirements for the charter school program.

Doyle said in his veto message he supports the background check requirements but was opposed to a provision allowing schools to fire any employee previously convicted of a felony.

Current Wisconsin law only allows an employer to terminate an employee with a felony conviction if the crime was substantially related to the job.

Doyle said the provision "creates never-ending discrimination against someone who has been rehabilitated."

But Rep. Scott Jensen, R-Waukesha and co-author of the background checks bill, said current law does not adequately protect school children. He cited a ruling in which a school was barred from firing a janitor who was convicted of throwing hot grease at a child. The ruling found the conviction was not substantially related to his job at a school.

"There's no parent who would feel comfortable with that standard, but Gov. Jim Doyle does," Jensen said.

Doyle signed seven bills Tuesday and vetoed three others following a flurry of action by the Legislature in the final days of the two-year session. Those vetoed included one that would have prohibited communities from increasing their minimum wage above Wisconsin's rate of $5.15 an hour. Madison has been considering such a move.

The school voucher program lets Milwaukee children from low-income families attend private schools at state expense. The state has had little oversight of the program, the nation's oldest and largest voucher initiative.

Legislative leaders and voucher officials worked out a series of compromises to create more accountability after reports that a convicted rapist ran one voucher school and a principal at another admitted using state money to buy two luxury cars.

One bill Doyle signed requires voucher schools to provide annual evidence to the state that they are using sound fiscal policies. It also requires schools that want to join the program prove they are financially viable.

The Department of Public Instruction also can kick out schools that fail to meet the standards or withhold payments from them.

The bill also would allow the DPI superintendent to terminate a school's participation in the program if conditions present an imminent threat to students' health and safety.

Another bill Doyle signed allows students at the Woodlands School in Milwaukee to continue attending as it changes from a voucher school to a charter school. State law would have prohibited some of the students from going to Woodlands after the change because of eligibility restrictions.

Charter schools operate with fewer constraints than traditional public schools.