Foundation Establishes Plan to Better Meet Members’ Educational Needs

Accessible, Quality CPE Is FAE’s Top Priority

By Jay Dismukes

NEW YORK—Following an unprecedented, near year-long initiative, the New York State Society of CPAs and the Foundation for Accounting Education (FAE) have established a course of action that is designed to significantly enhance the quality of continuing professional education (CPE) that is provided to the Society’s membership.

From meetings that began last summer and took place throughout the year, the NYSSCPA Board of Directors and FAE’s Board of Trustees voted separately in March to implement a number of steps and changes that clearly affirm their commitment to education as a vital membership service.

“More leadership attention has been given to educational services than probably ever before in the Society’s 105-year history,” noted Alan Schmelkin, director of FAE operations.

To ensure that all members have access to education, the Society’s budget for the first time will incorporate FAE’s overhead into its own, containing a line item for educational expenses associated with FAE’s programming. Throughout most of its 30-year existence, the Foundation has operated at a deficit and required additional funding by the NYSSCPA. The funding will now be treated as a purchase of education service for members, similar to chapter and committee operation expenses.

As part of the commitment to revamp the educational programming, the board and the trustees have developed a strategic plan that primarily concerns two key objectives. These include FAE’s pledge to continue to provide the highest quality education available, with the added focus of making the Foundation’s educational events as accessible to the membership as is reasonably possible. Additionally, FAE, through discount CPE plans like the Pay-One-Price Program, will continue to provide its educational services at affordable prices.

To make certain that these objectives are met and to keep expenses to a minimum, the FAE Trustees have developed a number of new rules and administrative procedures pertaining to the registration and delivery of the Foundation’s educational services. See attached sidebar “New FAE Rules and Administrative Procedures.”

Delivery of Educational Services

Since its inception, FAE has developed its own CPE programs and worked closely with committees and chapters to help them create and execute their own courses, conferences and evening technical sessions. While FAE is committed to maintaining and bolstering this cooperative relationship to serve the educational needs of the members, the Foundation is working to ensure that the membership has access to an even larger number of courses in a variety of popular areas. To accomplish this task, FAE has established an informal three-tiered system that will guarantee CPE curriculum in all areas of the state as well as account for a very wide range of accounting subject matter.

The first tier covers the entire state and includes a core curriculum that will keep members abreast of developments in fundamental practice areas like taxation, accounting and auditing and estate planning. This level of FAE programming will be offered to virtually all 17 Society chapters.

The second tier will focus on some of the Foundation’s most popular programs and courses and will run in the more populated areas of the state, though not necessarily in every chapter. These programs will be rotated throughout the state in an effort to maximize the speaker’s availability and generate a large audience.

Finally, the third tier will include very specialized, industry specific CPE that will only be available in certain regions of the state. This tier also will comprise select programming that will only run in New York City, where the Foundation is usually assured a critical mass of attendees.

In addition to providing a broad range of CPE courses and conferences in locations that are easily accessible for the membership, the Foundation also is working to minimize the amount of content overlap that has plagued FAE’s educational offerings in the past. For example, this year will witness for the first time a combined conference between flow-through entities and closely-held S corporations as will also be the case for fraud and litigation. Traditionally, these topics have been held as individual conferences and there has been duplication of information from event to event.

As a result of FAE’s strategic initiatives as well as the increased coordination among the Foundation, committee chairs and chapters, the CPE events will draw wider audiences while members will enjoy fresh, dynamic educational offerings that are more convenient to attend.