Oakland County Implements E-Verify For Citizenship
The Road Commission for Oakland County has voted to implement the Federal E-Verify Program that allows employers to verify that employees are eligible to work in the United States.
Oakland County has already adopted E-verify as part of its procurement policy.
The E-verification program allows employers, including the RCOC, to verify employment eligibility when hiring new employees and to confirm that new contracts entered into with service consultants and vendors doing business with the RCOC comply with immigration laws. The E-verify policy for the RCOC will go into effect on March 1.
Oakland County Commissioner Jim Runestad worked closely with the Road Commission for Oakland County to implement the E-verification program. He has been a strong advocate for E-verify since being elected to the Oakland County Board of Commissioners in 2008.
As result of his work, Oakland County government has an E-verification policy in place due to his efforts on the issue which made E-verification a requirement this past summer when his E-verify resolution was adopted by the Board of Commissioners this year.
"I commend the Road Commission for Oakland County for implementing the E-verify policy, to ensure that potential business partners are hiring legal workers, when seeking vendors for future county contracts," Runestad said. "This is an example of responsible government and shows respect for taxpayers' money."
E-verify is an Internet-based, free program operated by the federal government that compares information from an employee's Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 to data from United States government records. If the information matches, that employee is eligible to work in the United States. If there's a mismatch, E-verify alerts the employer and the employee is allowed to work while he or she resolves the problem within eight days. The program is operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with Social Security Administration. Currently, the DHS website reports that more than 196,000 employers now use E-verify and more than 1,400 companies enroll weekly in the program.
