MECHANICSBURG, Pa. -- The state's high school sports regulatory authority took the first step yesterday toward requiring all new athletic officials in Pennsylvania to undergo criminal background checks, voting to start them as early as February.

In a second vote, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association's board ordered its staff to create a long-term plan that could lead to phased-in background checks on all of the state's 13,700 officials.

The proposals were in response to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette investigation that found dozens of current and former athletic officials in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League had continued to work at games despite being convicted of child molestation and pornography, gambling and drug, gun and other offenses.

After learning of the findings, WPIAL's board proposed demanding background checks for all athletic officials beginning in January. While it was approved by a slim vote last summer, yesterday it was voted down because its time frame was considered too ambitious.

Then Bradley R. Cashman, executive director of the PIAA, who long opposed background checks for officials, asked the board to consider ordering all new athletic officials to undergo state police criminal and Department of Public Welfare background checks, which reveal whether an individual has a record of child abuse.

After the board added national FBI background checks to the requirements, it was unanimously approved on the first of three votes that will conclude in January.

Then the board asked the PIAA staff to explore implementing criminal background checks on every official in Pennsylvania. The proposals, which are also supposed to describe how the program would be built and funded, are to be presented at the December PIAA meeting.

Richard Constantine, president of the WPIAL, was happy with the results. "What we did today is a step in the right direction and what we think needs to be done," he said.

Pam Cherubin, a WPIAL board member and a certified PIAA official, said she joins "95 percent of all area officials" in favoring criminal background checks and said some officials' groups in the region are already beginning the process of obtaining them.

In a statement later, Mr. Cashman said: "The safety and well-being of the student-athletes of this commonwealth has always been the priority for PIAA and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure that we maintain that position."

If the proposal is amended to include all officials in the state, it would bring the PIAA in line with background check requirements of all school district employees and others working on school property who have direct contact with children. Three lawmakers also have said that they have introduced or will introduce bills requiring such checks.

Combined, the background checks cost about $50 a year. The PIAA, which has a $10.5 million annual budget, takes in $567,982 in membership dues a year from officials, who earn $30 to $70 a game.

In other action, two registered PIAA officials from Western Pennsylvania with sex offenses and another found guilty of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars had their licenses revoked yesterday by the PIAA board.

The action was taken by unanimous voice vote against convicted sex offenders Timothy Walter Boyle and David Costanza, and Dennis Waltko, a twice-convicted thief.

The board removed Mr. Boyle, 61, formerly of Munhall, over his 2004 conviction and eight-year prison sentence for engaging in involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a mentally disabled person.

The board removed former Ambridge High School social studies teacher Mr. Costanza, a baseball umpire, over his April 2007 conviction for having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student.

Mr. Waltko, of Allison Park, was convicted in 1992 in a $276,352 theft and in April 2003 of stealing $10,000 from the North Allegheny Tiger Junior Wrestling Association, where he was treasurer.