Movers & Shakers June 16, 2010
Chamber "Plaque Attack" today
The Coeur d'Alene Chamber Membership Outreach Committee will have its annual "Membership Plaque Attack" day today. The committee cruises the community with a list of dropped members over the past year to collect their plaques displayed in their businesses.
"The plaque states on the back that it is the property of the chamber and are on loan for display in the member business only," Marilee Wallace, sales director for the chamber said. "If a business drops their membership, we ask for it back then we recycle the wood for new members coming on board."
Often business may not realize their membership lapsed and they will renew when the committee visits. About 15 committee volunteers will be out collecting the plaques.
Agent earns short sale certificate
Janna Rankin Scharf, an associate broker with Keller Williams Realty, has earned the nationally recognized Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource certification.
Scharf has been assisting sellers avoid foreclosure through short sales since 2006.
"As an advocate for home ownership, I believe that any family that loses its home to foreclosure is one family too many," she said. "Often, a successful short sale enables a family to avoid foreclosure and make the best of a bad situation."
According to a recent National Association of Realtors survey, nearly one third of all existing homes sold recently were either short sales or foreclosures.
USCIS launches redesigned E-Verify
After a year-long overhaul, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has launched a completely redesigned Web interface for employers using the agency's E-Verify Program.
"This is one more example of the ongoing enhancements we are making to E-Verify," said USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas. "The redesigned Web interface for E-Verify provides employers more streamlined access and offers an expanded customer support section. This parallels the agency's USCIS.gov redesign last September that ensures continued efficiency and transparency in our services."
The re-engineering of more than 200 pages has transformed the Web interface user experience. The new Web interface includes improved navigational tools to enhance ease-of-use, minimize errors, support compliance with the terms of use, and enable real-time validation of employers enrolling in E-Verify against commercial data.
A new home page, along with a new 'case alerts' feature, improved case management, and streamlined tutorials are among the improvements to the E-Verify Web site. The new interface also has enhanced security features such as masking Social Security numbers to further protect privacy and ensure that only valid companies enroll in E-Verify. This and other new features will also help minimize the chances of fraudulent access.
The user-centric design showcases E-Verify's continued commitment to customer service, security, accuracy and efficiency. It further highlights USCIS's overall customer centric focus and desire to continually increase the public's confidence in the system.
All current E-Verify users are required to complete the updated tutorial. The tutorial takes about 20 minutes to complete and serves as a "how-to" of the new system.
E-Verify is a free Web-based system-operated by USCIS in partnership with the Social Security Administration-that allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees. More than 208,000 participating employers at more than 762,000 worksites nationwide currently use E-Verify to electronically verify their newly hired workers' employment authorization.