License Data Verification Letter
Ronna Bordelon
Tier One, Tier Two and Oregon Public Service Retirement Plan (OPSRP) members can request a verification of certain retirement data. PERS recommends that you request a data verification when you are within two years of your anticipated retirement date so the information is current.
The verification is based on the information that has been reported to PERS by the members' employer(s). The verification includes the member's accrued creditable service or retirement credit and the member's "final average salary."
If PERS produces a verification, a member's retirement benefit will be calculated using data that is not less than the amounts provided in the verification, except in certain circumstances. For example, account balances will be adjusted for earnings or losses credited up to the member's effective retirement date and accumulated unused sick leave will be adjusted for leave accrued and used after the date specified in the verification.
Members will have 60 days after PERS provides the verification to dispute the accuracy of the data in the verification. Employers will have a reasonable time to confirm information before a verification is issued, but will not be able to change that information once the verification is issued.
Normal processing time is two to six months. This includes the time that your employer(s) have to respond to PERS' request that they review your data (employers have 30 days to provide verified data to PERS for the Data Verification).
If you request a data verification and retire before it is completed, you will receive an estimated benefit payment. PERS will calculate and pay a final benefit amount once the data verification is completed.
Have you benchmarked one or more buildings, and are looking to take the next steps on energy efficiency? Click here to learn about suggestions and resources for starting to improve the energy performance of your property(ies).
1.) Get Started: Determine whether your building must comply. You can review the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance and use this checklist to determine if your building is required to report. Identify a building lead.
2.) Benchmark Your Building in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager: Create an ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager account and property profile(s); gather basic information required by Portfolio Manager; obtain monthly, whole-building energy use data for all fuel types; enter property uses & details; enter energy use data; enter your Chicago Energy Benchmarking ID
3.) Verify Building Data: Generate a Data Verification Checklist in Portfolio Manager; have a recognized professional review and sign-off on the data; add data verifier information to Portfolio Manager. NOTE: this step is only required once every three years.
4.) Report to the City: Send required building and energy information to the City through ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. NOTE: Each year, you must send data using a new URL, found on this website. Click here for the 2024 Reporting Link.
Please refer to the following materials for additional background and step-by-step instructions to help you comply with the Chicago Energy Benchmarking ordinance (the annual reporting deadline is June 1st):
Please click the following link for the most recent Covered Buildings List (City of Chicago Data Portal) of facilities that are required to comply with the Chicago Energy Benchmarking ordinance this year.
The covered buildings list also contains the 6-digit Chicago Energy Benchmarking ID assigned to each building, which must be included with each building's annual benchmarking data. Refer to the Compliance Checklist or Benchmarking Guide for additional instructions.
If a building appears on this list that you believe should not be covered by the ordinance (i.e. smaller than 50,000 square feet, and/or eligible for an exemption due to non-covered space use, financial distress, low occupancy, or new construction), please submit the corresponding request from the Building Request Form webpage.
Owners and managers of covered buildings are strongly encouraged to take advantage of aggregated electricity and natural gas data provided by Chicago utilities at no additional charge to covered buildings.
To facilitate building benchmarking, data verification, and reporting, the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance uses ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, a free online software tool developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA).
To ensure that data is being tracked and reported correctly, covered buildings must have their energy and building data reviewed and verified every three years (beginning with the first time a building complies).
The next year that your property is required to complete data verification will be listed on the most recent Covered Buildings List. It is also listed on the notification letter and email sent by the City in the spring.
The ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Data Verification Checklist, signed by a trained individual whose professional license or training program credential is recognized by the City, serves as proof of data verification.
UPDATED (2021): Data verifier information must be entered into the "Verification" section (under "Details" tab of each building's Portfolio Manager profile, select "Add Verification Information" under "Verification" section), as described in the Compliance Checklist or Benchmarking Guide.
The City also recognizes buildings that have achieved ENERGY STAR Certification by the US Environmental Protection Agency as fulfilling the data verification requirement, provided that the building's ENERGY STAR certified data include at least six months of the calendar year for which Chicago Energy Benchmarking data verification is required.
Some covered buildings may be eligible for pro-bono data verification through the U.S. Green Building Council's Illinois Chapter, ASHRAE Illinois, AIA-Chicago, and local volunteers. Please click the following link to apply for pro-bono data verification support.
The Illinois Green Alliance maintains an online directory of companies that offer fee-for-service support for energy benchmarking, data verification, and other efficiency efforts. The Illinois Green Alliance created this directory to help interested buildings find firms that provide benchmarking-related services.
As a reminder, the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance does not require covered buildings to hire outside support. For additional details, please refer to 'How to Fulfill the Data Verification Requirement' on this page or the Compliance Checklist and Benchmarking Guide.
Note: This directory contains self-reported service provider information. Buildings should exercise all due diligence when selecting an energy service provider. The City of Chicago does not guarantee the quality or pricing of the work provided by these firms, and the firms listed in the directory do not have any affiliation with the City of Chicago.
Once a building has been benchmarked in Portfolio Manager and data has been verified (if required this year), covered buildings must submit their data to the City of Chicago using the current year Chicago Energy Benchmarking Reporting Link. Note that the reporting link does change every year, and the link(s) from previous years will not allow you to comply this year.
After clicking the reporting link, users will be prompted to log into their Portfolio Manager account, which will guide them through several simple reporting steps (including selecting the building(s) on which to report, reviewing the information to be reported, and sharing that information with the City of Chicago).
Upon reporting Chicago Energy Benchmarking data to the City, some buildings may receive a follow-up email requesting additional action to 1.) provide missing required information in order to come into compliance or 2.) review data for possible errors or inaccuracies.
The IRS proactively identifies and stops the processing of potential identity theft returns. You may receive a notice or letter asking you to verify your identity and tax return information with the IRS. This helps prevent an identity thief from getting your refund.
There are compatibility issues with some assistive technologies. Refer to the Identity Verification Service Accessibility Guide for help if you use a screen reader, screen magnifier or voice command software.
ITIN holders must verify their identity through the video chat process and will need a valid email address, proof of ITIN, one primary document and one secondary document. One of the documents must provide proof of address.
This identity verification process applies to IRS services including Online Account, Get Transcript Online, Online Payment Agreement, Get an Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN), Tax Pro Account, e-Services, and Submit Forms 2848 and 8821 Online.
Data validation is also the process of confirming the proper order of numbers and letters. For example, consider a supplier code for customers in which there are first 4 letters, followed by 5 numbers. Validation confirms that the characters come first (and there are 4 of them), and the correct amount of numbers comes next. An International Bank Account Number (IBAN) consists of country codes, account numbers, and bank codes: a mix of numbers and letters that must be validated to ensure those characters are in the correct order.
For organizations that need to process more data than their staff can, or should, handle, outsourcing is often considered the best option to seamlessly scale workloads and keep SLAs. Ideally, a service provider combines state-of-the-art technology with humans in the loop to offer optimum data validation at scale and with fast turn-around times.
For verification, the process can be customized to happen according to any other external need or regulation. Many organizations, and especially those from the medical or financial sector, must remain HIPAA compliant. Also, in some cases, specific expert knowledge is requested to validate or verify specific data. For these cases, ScaleHub uses so-called specialist crowds with the required credentials and expertise. (To learn more about our various types of crowds watch this short video.)
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