There has been a nationwide clamor for reform of police policies and procedures following a spate of incidents stemming from the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday approved two House bills designed to prevent “bad apples” from continuing to find employment in police departments.

The governor’s office said Gov. Tom Wolf will sign the legislation.

One of the bills requires police agencies to compile and report use-of-force incidents, including injuries, deaths and the reason for the use of force.

The other bill requires departments to have a written use-of-force policy, make it public and train officers on it, while banning those use-of-force policies.

The bills require officers to be trained every other year in how to interact with people of different racial and ethic backgrounds and to receive annual instruction on de-escalation and harm-reduction techniques.

It also requires officers to undergo a mental health evaluation for post-traumatic stress disorder within 30 days of an incident in which the officer used lethal force or at the request of a supervisor.

An officer who shows symptoms of PTSD during an evaluation must wait for a licensed physician to clear them to resume full duties.

It’s a worthwhile first step, but the bills fall short in several areas:

Lawmakers are not considering legislation to make police department records of officer discipline accessible to the public, even as New York and New Jersey have moved in recent days to join other states that do so.

The bills would not make the annual state police report available to the public.

The bills also do not require police departments to track the race or gender of people who officers use force against.

Also, bills central to Democrats’ police reform platform — narrowing the circumstances in which the use of lethal force is allowable and appointing special prosecutors to investigate police shootings — have not seen action in the Legislature.

“So-called bad apples will spoil the barrel if they are not plucked out before the rot spreads,” Rep. Margo Davidson, D-164th, said on the floor last week before the House vote. “We have to address a culture where bad actors go unpunished or move on with their baggage.”

The bills, which will be sent to Wolf following a review by the House, would require police departments to conduct background checks of job applicants that require an applicant’s former department to disclose information on the officer’s job history, including disciplinary actions, complaints and reasons for separation.

We wonder why no one thought of doing this before.

That bill directs the Municipal Police Officers Education and Training Commission to maintain an electronic database containing that information.

But the database would not be accessible to the public.

It should be.