AICPA Heeds Call for Council Task Force
Role and Relationship with Members to Be Reviewed

By Jay Dismukes

NEW YORK—A new task force to examine the role and responsibilities of the governing Council of the American Institute of CPAs has been established and will make its findings known in the fall, the AICPA announced last month.

In particular, the task force has been instructed to consider the manner in which the Council representation is decided and the manner in which the Council administers its activities, with a distinct focus on communications and the relationship between the Council and the AICPA membership and board of directors.

The idea for the task force came about as a result of discussions and break-out sessions during the Council’s fall 2002 meeting in which reforms in the profession and the Institute were the key topics of debate. (See “AICPA Council Mulls Governance Reform” on page 1 and the President’s Commentary on page 2 of the November 2002 Trusted Professional.) Helping to lead those discussions, the New York State Society of CPAs submitted a resolution that called for the establishment of an independent “task force to examine the governance and structure of the AICPA to ensure responsiveness and accountability to the membership.” The Ohio, Nevada and Colorado delegations followed with an alternative resolution that also called for the establishment of a task force.

Council voted to postpone both the New York and alternative resolutions indefinitely, but proceeded to listen to responses from break-out groups that earlier in the meeting had been asked to review two items posed by the Massachusetts Society of CPAs in a May 2002 letter to then AICPA Chairman Jim Castellano. Those items included “the role of Council” and “how the organization can capture accurate and timely feedback from the rank-and-file membership.”

According to the AICPA, feedback from the break-out sessions and from subsequent meetings by the Group of 100 (an AICPA special committee that helps the Institute identify key issues facing the profession) and the Institute’s board of directors “indicate a strong interest among a significant portion of our Council members” in addressing the role of the Council and its relationship with the membership. Interest in a complete examination of AICPA governance and structure, as called for by New York, is not “strong,” but Council considered the issue in determining the objectives of the task force, the AICPA said.

A Step in the Right Direction

During a year that AICPA Chairman William F. Ezzell has said is about “restoration,” the Institute announced that the task force will look into several Council-related matters. According to the AICPA, these include, but are not limited to:

• The current method by which Council members are elected or appointed by the states and the Council;
• The current means by which Council members are informed of developments in the profession;
• Whether Council members should function as an advocate or representative of the members or act as a trustee of the profession as a whole;
• Whether Council members are representatives of their particular state positions or should be encouraged to represent their own views with respect to matters under consideration;
• Recommendations to enhance the ability of Council members to stay informed about the views of the members in their states;
• Recommendations for ways to facilitate better communications between Council, the board of directors, the state societies’ leadership and the grassroots membership.

“I think it’s (the task force) definitely a step in the right direction. We’ve had our first meeting via conference call, and I am encouraged that the task force is very serious about reviewing the structure of the Council and anything else that we think is appropriate with respect to governance,” said Jeffrey R. Hoops, a task force member and the Society’s president-elect. “I think this a great start. Let’s give the process a chance to work.”

Upon review of the matters, the AICPA said the task force will recommend any changes that it believes would bolster the “Council process, communications (and) representation of the membership at large.” Though AICPA governance and structure are not within the scope of the task force’s agenda, the group has the option of including an addendum on the issue in its full report, to be presented at the fall 2003 Council meeting. A preliminary report is expected to be issued during the board of directors’ meeting in July.