Business audits about to begin
mshapiro@islandpacket.com
843-706-8142
BLUFFTON -- The Beaufort County Council began talking about an ordinance to discourage hiring illegal immigrants in the fall of 2005.
More than two years later, the county is on the verge of rolling out a random audit of county businesses, which will include examining paid employee lists and federal immigration documents called I-9s.
The latest hurdle the county had to clear was a contract with Hilton Head Island security firm, Advance Point Global, which is assisting in the audits. The County Council approved the $175,000 contract Monday night, but county administrator Gary Kubic said there were still a few details to finalize.
For example, Kubic said he is waiting to get signed copies of the contract returned to his office by Advance Point Global before setting up individual audits.
"As soon as they send it (the contract) back, we're ready to pull the trigger," Kubic said. Kubic said the county has chosen a method to randomly select the first 100 businesses that will be audited.
The pool of businesses consists only of those that do business in unincorporated Beaufort County, and therefore need county licenses.
Municipalities, including Beaufort and the towns of Hilton Head and Bluffton, are not conducting audits.
Kubic has said that in the first year of the program he expects between 500 and 550 of the roughly 4,300 businesses will be audited.
Andrew Patrick, CEO of Advance Point Global, said he's been working with the county to make sure that letters sent to the first batch of businesses to be audited are easy to understand and that the audit is not burdensome for employers. Those businesses will have six days to respond. "We're trying to make this as simple and painless as we possibly can," Patrick said.
He said the letters will ask businesses to provide tax returns as well as a list of employees and an I-9 for each one.
He said that he expects to interview heads of businesses or personnel managers to go over the various documents.
Once the Advance Point Global contract is signed, the county's business license department will mail letters to the 100 businesses.
Patrick said that based on how quickly a business responded, audits could start next week. But he added, "Realistically, we're looking at somewhere like the second week of April."
The county will have the power to strip a business that has knowingly violated the county's ordinance of its license to operate in unincorporated areas. It's unclear exactly how the county will treat violators, however.