St. Charles School Board members have been weighing the option recently of whether to audit local contractors they employ to determine if all of their workers belong in this country legally and have decided against it.
The subject came up at the June 4 Capital Improvement Committee Meeting at the request of board member Mary Bergeron.
While a particular incident didn’t trigger Bergeron’s curiosity about the subject, she said it’s an issue that is prevalent in much of the country currently and it seemed to make sense for the school board to cover all bases.
Bergeron said if it were her property being worked on she would want the option to look into all their paperwork and she feels no differently about the school board being able to do the same.
“If I hire someone to do work for me and I have a concern that not all of their employees are legal residents, I want to be able to say to them send me documentation that every person working on my job is a legal resident, period,” Bergeron said.
Bergeron proposed that the board begin to add a provision in their work contracts that would allow the school board to audit anyone they employ randomly.
School Superintendent Rodney Lafon said that was unnecessary because the law already grants them an opportunity to determine that if they deem it necessary.
“We talked to our attorney and basically there is a law. In order for a contractor to hire these people (aliens), they have to have a green card,” Lafon said.
In the end Lafon said the board could include the provision to audit their contractors, but it’s not necessary.
“Because you’ve got the law, you can already do that.”
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