April 2001

Speak Up! The UAA Depends on It

NEW YORK—During the current legislative session, the New York State Senate and Assembly are expected to take up the bill patterned on the model Uniform Accountancy Act [S. 2456 (LaValle), A. 4445 (Farrell)], marking the third year in a row the UAA has gone before the Legislature.

If enacted, the bill will effect the first comprehensive change to the state accountancy law since 1947. But change of this magnitude will remain unrealized unless the Society’s members contact their local legislators and voice their support for the bill.

“The UAA bill will not pass unless legislators believe CPAs in the state of New York feel it is important to their practices,” said Cathy Landau-Painter, director of state government affairs for KPMG. “If legislators don’t hear from their constituents, they think that their constituents don’t care about the bill—and that is the quickest way to see a bill go nowhere.”

Landau-Painter, who is helping to pass UAA legislation in a number of states, is working with Dennis O’Leary, NYSSCPA director of governmental affairs, who is coordinating the Society’s grassroots efforts in New York.

According to Landau-Painter, legislators respond to volume. Sheer numbers are one of the surest methods decision-makers have for gauging public sentiment on an issue and deciding what course of action should be taken. Grassroots efforts involving thousands of letters, personal notes, faxes, and phone calls can help determine the outcome of a legislative matter, she said.

Though an option, e-mail is generally considered the least effective way to communicate with public officials given the overwhelming number of electronic messages they receive each day.

While these campaigns function as a sort of measuring stick for politicians, they also serve another important purpose—education.

Education is particularly crucial to the UAA bill. Landau-Painter, who recently helped facilitate passage of a similar UAA bill in Maryland, explains why.

“Legislators probably view CPAs in a fairly stereotypical way, so unless we help educate them about the whole range of services we provide, the kinds of ways we help our clients and the diversity of our client base, they don’t really understand why it is important to pass a bill like the UAA to modernize the law so that it is consistent with how we practice today,” she said.

Landau-Painter believes lack of knowledge is the biggest obstacle currently facing the UAA bill. Only through NYSSCPA members can the Senate and Assembly members truly comprehend the bill’s impact on CPAs and the future of the profession in New York.

The Society’s grassroots efforts this year began in late March, when NYSSCPA President P. Gerard Sokolski contacted all 211 state legislators by letter, stressing the vital importance of the UAA bill to CPAs as well as the many changes to the CPA profession over the past 54 years, O’Leary said. The Society has also pooled together a cadre of volunteers who are serving as “UAA key contact persons” to state legislators. This group is comprised of each chapter’s government relations directors and members who have personal or business relationships with various state legislators. The UAA key contact persons are holding meetings with state legislators which, to date, have increased sponsorship and support for the UAA bill, O’Leary said.

“While our UAA key contact persons are doing a terrific job, we need a full-court press from our broader membership to impress upon rank-and-file legislators that the UAA bill is important to CPAs across the state,” O’Leary said.

Without hearing from their constituents, Landau-Painter said the legislators have very few means or incentive to become more familiar with an area they know little about. She suggests members take certain steps, albeit fairly obvious ones.