The City Auditor's Office, keeping a vigilant eye on the compliance practices of City contractors, put the beam on the legality of hiring practices in its latest examination. According to a report released yesterday, findings indicate a hiccup in the chain of compliance with the federal E-Verify employment eligibility verification system. While the primary City contractors were found to generally check out, their hired hands—subcontractors—weren't all adhering to the same standards.

An audit, carried out over the fiscal year 2022-23, revealed a compliance gap that could potentially muddy the waters of contractual legitimacy. Primary contractors seem to understand the assignment, yet the rigor isn't quite trickling down to the subcontractor level. According to the report published on the city’s official website, two out of three subcontractors audited had not bothered to correctly use, or to even enroll in the E-Verify program for the workers under review.

Arizona law doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to this matter – it insists that each government entity must do a little digging to ensure contractors and their underlings are in check with the employment eligibility verification program. The E-Verify system is a federal measure directed to safeguard that employees are legally sanctioned to work in the U.S.

However, implementing the system at all layers of contracting has proven to be a tough nut to crack. The auditors' probe unearthed that one subcontractor wasn't even registered with E-Verify at the time they on-boarded an employee. The other simply reported that their "prior payroll processes did not E-Verify."