Within Our Grasp
Profession Must Seize the Moment for Reform and Restoration

By Jeffrey R. Hoops

All politics are local.” This quote from former Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill is especially applicable to our profession right now. This column and prior issues of The Trusted Professional have described the New York State Society of CPAs’ efforts to work with the New York state legislature to achieve meaningful and effective accounting reform. The state Senate passed an accounting reform bill in June, and now the Society is focused on getting a similar bill passed in the Assembly.

Throughout this process it has become very clear that our profession needs to have meaningful contacts with our state legislators and members of the New York State Board of Regents. Meaningful contacts can give us access to these officials where we can express our views and make sure our voice is heard. Meaningful contacts go to the heart of the advocacy goal in the Society’s Strategic Plan.

But meaningful contacts can’t be developed overnight. For these reasons we devoted half of our third annual Leadership Conference to building relationships with our elected officials. To help us, we asked Mike Dunn, a well-known political consultant, for advice. In a nutshell, his advice was to get involved!

Specifically, Dunn suggested that we contribute our time and money to political candidates. He said we should strive to use our expertise to help with campaign finances, and to be a resource person on tax and financial issues. We can be even more effective if we can help a candidate recruit others to contribute their time and money, he added.

This is not about partisan politics. It doesn’t matter if you are Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative. We need meaningful contacts with all legislators who can have an influence on the issues that affect us—issues like tax reform or accounting reform.

I urge all of you to get involved. If you want help, please contact Vince Love, the Society’s vice president for legislative affairs, or Dennis O’Leary, our legislative counsel.

One way to get started is by making a contribution to the Society’s political action committee. Formed in 1999 to strengthen the profession’s voice with the New York state legislature, CPAPAC provides bipartisan support to candidates for office who are our profession’s allies. Having a well-funded PAC that can advance our interests has never been more important than right now. For more information on CPAPAC or for instructions on making a contribution, please go to our website at www.nysscpa.org and click on the “Gov’t Affairs” link.

Another way you can help is to attend chapter events when legislators are invited. Many chapters host legislative breakfasts to which they invite the elected officials who represent the area. Members of the Board of Regents are invited to other events. Your attendance can only enhance our efforts.

We devoted the second part of our Leadership Conference to discussing how we can reclaim our image as the trusted profession. To help us achieve this goal, we heard from a number of experienced professionals, including Lynn E.Turner, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chief accountant from 1998 to 2000, the very period that many of the accounting scandals were taking place. Speakers also included Charlie Weinstein, from Eisner LLP, and past Society President Marilyn Pendergast, from Urbach Kahn & Werlin LLP. Marilyn’s speech was particularly well received and has been posted on the Society’s website. The discussion groups that followed the presentations generated some good ideas that we plan to implement this year.

Finally, another goal in our Strategic Plan is to help our members maintain their professional competency by providing high-quality continuing professional education. Each year the Foundation for Accounting Education provides hundreds of courses and conferences to achieve this goal.

I’d like to highlight one particular conference. On Sept. 9, FAE will hold its annual SEC Conference. Because of the changes contained in the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, this conference is more important than ever. Scheduled speakers include William McDonough, chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board; Robert Herz, chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board; Carol Stacey, chief accountant of the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance, and Susan Markel, chief accountant of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. This should be an outstanding and insightful conference—one that is critical to our profession and the work that lies ahead. I hope to see you there.

president@nysscpa.org