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October 2002 NYSSCPA Annual Report Message from the Executive Director The New York State Society of CPAs emerged as a voice for its members this year. Guided by a strong board of directors that actively sought member input, your Society spoke out on professional and legislative issues, developed more relevant and accessible programs and gave birth to a strategic plan. The Society became a respected player in the media and on legislative fronts during a turbulent year for the profession. A professional association defines its value by listening to its members and then acting in their best interests. Those of you on the front lines have been talking to us. Committee participation is up. Our new chapters are thriving, and attendance is healthy at the more established ones as well. You are writing more letters to our publications and contacting officers and staff about issues that are important to you. Your praise reinforces that the Society is on the right track in representing your interests. Your criticism forces us to ask more questions, to listen more. What emerged this year was a stronger association, more representative of the voices we heard. In that regard, we took a leadership role in opposing and defeating the efforts of the American Institute of CPAs to modify the Institute’s bylaws so as to enable the granting of a global credential. We spoke up, often alone, on the floor of AICPA Council meetings, to make clear that our members saw the proposal as a competing credential that had no place in the CPA profession. We helped inform other states of the many reasons to oppose the credential. We served as an outspoken minority that turned out to be a leader of a greater than expected silent majority. Similarly, we stood in the minority when your board voted not to participate in CPA2Biz, an AICPA portal for CPAs and their clients. We were uncomfortable with portal equity interests, and a comingling of for-profit business deals with a not-for-profit organization. Your officers voted to keep our mission focused on member service. As we struggled to accept the realities of life in New York after last September, the Society, through its members and their work, continued to create a legacy for CPAs. Members reached out to help other members, small businesses and ordinary people in an outpouring of volunteerism. As Enron and its aftershocks devastated the image of our profession and called into question the very core of the CPA, we moved front and center. We testified before legislators and regulators about changes needed in New York state to ensure that CPAs are accountable for their work. We called for a state board of accountancy with more power and more resources to investigate and discipline effectively. Media outlets across the state and beyond picked up our message. We had more than 200 interviews with journalists on this topic. In the midst of all this upheaval, the board of directors had already begun the process of developing a strategic plan for the Society. Central to this plan is agreement that the Society should be more active in public policy issues, should utilize chapters as a strategic resource and should maintain education as one of its most important services. As we move into the new fiscal year, the new board is refining this draft and its concepts and is soliciting increased member input. Behind the scenes, we weathered some fiscal problems, particularly with a falloff in support for the Foundation for Accounting Education. To solve this problem, we radically revamped our offerings and cut 13 staff positions. We are, therefore, pleased to see signs of health as registrations in our educational programs this summer have been rising in the double digits. We hope we have turned a corner. Similarly, we see accelerated dues payments from our members, even with a dues increase. Six fledgling chapters are off and running, and our website approaches three million hits each month. It has become a valued source of breaking news on the profession. The Trusted Professional now has a special section to accommodate chapter news. With these expanded communications vehicles, our members know more about their Society and more about what their peers are accomplishing. Going forward, the Society will strive to meet the individual needs of its membership and the broader needs of the profession as a whole. Paramount to those objectives will be restoring confidence in the marketplace for CPA services. We will be front and center building on and preserving the century-old foundation of CPA ethics and integrity.
The CPA Journal Beginning with Enron, corporate accountability scandals of the last 12 months spurred The CPA Journal in 2001-2002 to take a more active role in covering news in the profession, adding more depth to the publication’s long-standing mission to provide a forum for dialogue and debate. Key to this mission, and in response to the events of the past year, the Journal expanded its News & Views section to allow for more opinion, commentary, analysis and personal perspectives. But the editors of the Journal wanted to do more. In the 2001-2002 fiscal year, the Journal conducted its first in-depth readership survey since 1991. The results confirmed the Journal’s value and importance to NYSSCPA members and other audiences. Its findings will help the editors keep the Journal ahead of changes in the profession and the business environment. Adding to its appeal to readers, The CPA Journal is now produced in full color throughout its pages, creating a more visually engaging publication. And the Journal’s website, www.cpajournal.com, has become an increasingly important aspect of the publication. NYSSCPA members and other readers have come to rely on the online archives as a research and reference resource. Finally, a new editorial internship program begun in the 2001-2002 year allows the Journal to increase its level of productivity while giving undergraduate and graduate students in journalism, publishing and related programs an opportunity to develop their skills. FAE: Expanding and Enhancing The Foundation for Accounting Education in 2001-2002 widened its efforts to serve Society members throughout New York state by creating a presence in all 17 chapter areas, aiding committees in planning and promoting conferences, and establishing new registration rules. The staff accomplished all this in a time of slow economic growth that inspired creative and conscientious streamlining efforts. A survey conducted by the Society’s marketing department in October 2001 revealed that FAE can be the premier choice for those seeking quality CPE in a live, interactive learning environment. Generating a 17 percent response rate, the survey found that respondents want FAE courses and conferences that offer diverse subject matter from year to year and more advanced-level, reasonably priced courses led by reputable speakers in desired geographic locations. With new, vigorous attention focused on bringing FAE to the far reaches of the state, the Foundation expanded its full curriculum of CPE offerings in every chapter or major city area with seminars that covered accounting, auditing, ethics, taxation and industry-related topics, while the core curriculum grew everywhere. FAE staff sought to appeal to the membership’s wide range of interests, increasing new course offerings by 15 percent. Response has been positive. For example, the IRS Practice and Procedures Conference experienced a 95 percent increase in attendance, as 146 individuals attended in 2002, compared to 75 in 2001. In fact, as of Aug. 27, 2002, all but five of 21 conferences for which data is available enjoyed attendance hikes from 2001 to 2002, with the Governmental Accounting and Auditing Conference and the Construction Contractors Conference (NYC) experiencing 107 percent and 97 percent increases in attendance, respectively. Taking steps to improve communication between the Society’s departments, brand all NYSSCPA and FAE products and events, create more targeted mailing lists, and give more advance notice of events also helped generate greater member and nonmember interest and recognition of conferences and other NYSSCPA offerings. Improved services came with creative cost-cutting measures. FAE staff doubled their efforts to streamline the expense of meeting, seminar and conference facilities, food and beverages, and room rentals. The Foundation reduced the cost of publicity by increasing advertising on the Society’s website, www.nysscpa.org, and the NYSSCPA newspaper, The Trusted Professional, using these outlets to promote committees’ evening and morning technical sessions. This step completely eliminated the cost of printing brochures for those sessions. The staff also held a conference planning workshop with the Society’s committee chairs to underscore the importance of reinvigorating committee-sponsored conferences with important, hot new topics. The staff encouraged conference chairs to be a part of the publicity process as early as possible in order to have the most time possible to promote their conferences with brochures and advertisements in The Trusted Professional. Finally, in 2001-2002 FAE implemented new seminar and conference registration policies for last-minute walk-in attendees, cancellations and transfers. FAE staff took extra care to inform members and customers of the new registration rules, again through The Trusted Professional and displays at conference and seminar check-in tables. A meeting with FAE staff and on-site administrators ensured that the people who manage FAE events were well informed of the rules and its enforcement, so as to better serve members and customers. Although FAE lost $1,200,000 in 2001-2002, indications at the end of the year promised a turnaround as registration for summer classes began to shoot up. Registration for classes in June, July and August of 2002 increased by 17 percent over the same period the year before. Society Website: A big Hit The Society’s website, www.nysscpa.org, underwent a number of changes, additions and improvements in 2001-2002 in an effort to better serve the Society membership. The website staff conducted an extensive site redesign in order to make it easier to find information and navigate through the thousands of pages of information. The site now has a fresh professional look that uses a red, white and blue color scheme and consistent fonts. Users can now make nysscpa.org their web browser’s home page or add it to their browser’s “favorites” list with one click. The search engine is now easier to locate, and the Things to Do links list allows visitors to easily find the more popular pages on the website. Finally, users can always get back to the home page if they ever get lost. This year’s accounting scandals led to the creation of the site’s Accountability Center, a special area where visitors can find information on legislation and public hearings as well as the latest breaking news on corporate malfeasance. And once visitors click to read a news story on the most recent developments in the accounting profession and the financial markets, they can then e-mail it to a friend or print it out. The staff also added Bill Tracker, which features continuously updated information on pending state and federal legislation affecting the accounting profession, with each bill’s text, summary and status. The Contact Your Elected Representatives section has been fully updated with phone numbers, addresses and e-mail links for all of New York’s state senators and assemblymen/women. In addition, the site offers complete tax forms—New York City, state and federal—from 2002 back to 1999, all of which may be downloaded and printed out. All of the Society’s conferences and seminars are accessible for online registration and payment, and the site’s scrolling calendar on the home page allows visitors to see the latest upcoming NYSSCPA events. In addition, prospective members can find a new online Become a Member section with an online application form. Also, online subscription forms are now available for The Trusted Professional and The CPA Journal. The Society’s chapters have new home pages, as well. Anchored by a consistent design, they provide more accessible news and background information for all 17 of the Society chapters. The online Member Directory was added to the home page in 2001-2002 and updated to give users easier access to member information. It also now allows for searches by county, chapter and CPA firm. The E-zine e-mail newsletter is also new and improved, with more than 3,000 subscribers receiving in-depth stories, Society events listings and commentary. These changes have already paid dividends. The website’s numbers in 2002 have grown substantially, with visitors logging more than 20.5 million hits, more than 5.2 million page views and more than 850,000 user visits between January and August. From the redesign to the end of the 2001-2002 fiscal year, the number of monthly visitors to the site increased by about 20 percent, from about 90,000 distinct visits to the site in November 2001 to 110,000 in May 2002. The website made many great strides in the 2001-2002 fiscal year, but much more is left to do. So please continue to visit www.nysscpa.org every day to see us grow. Committees: On the Rise A notable increase in regular meeting attendance and a long chain of conferences featuring exciting discussion of subjects vital in the age of Enron, Sept.11 and global accounting punctuated the 2001-2002 committee year. Committees saw a nearly 8 percent increase in average meeting attendance compared to all of the 2000-2001 committee year. Attendance at committee CPE sessions also shot up markedly, as attendees grappled with topics ranging from a review of the LINUX operating system to Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement issues—a popular subject following the recent accounting fiascoes. During regular meetings, committees played host to captivating guest speakers, including representatives from the United States Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House Ways and Means Committee. Successful, well-attended conferences sponsored by committees included the Business Valuation Conference, which featured “cutting-edge” presentations by some of the best nationally known authors, practitioners and speakers in the business valuation field. The popular Investment Partnerships Conference held concurrent sessions on hedge funds and discussed other topics such as private placement, variable life, accounting and regulators update, deferring manager compensation, swap funds and more. Nearly 300 people attended the conference, which featured a speaker who had once been a partner in the embattled Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund. There also was the Strategic Planning for Your High-Net-Worth Clients Conference, which covered a lot of road, with topics like individual tax issues created by pass-through entities, life planning, sophisticated executive tax strategies, assets protection, proposed legislation and a federal and state tax update. Another successful event was the Estate Planning Conference, which explored the most dynamic issues in estate planning, such as retirement planning, philanthropic advisory issues, the accountant’s role as estate planner, current and future business valuation issues and more. Committee events included the Cooperation with Bankers and Other Credit Grantors Luncheon which featured Steven N. Garfinkel, a CPA and supervisory special agent for an FBI squad investigating the methods and sources of terrorist financing. Garfinkel talked about the cooperative efforts between law enforcement agencies and the financial community to track down different sources of terrorist financing. The Estate Planning Committee also held its annual dinner, with the honorable Judge C. Raymond Radigan, former surrogate of Nassau County, speaking on recent developments related to the Principal and Income Act. Committees submitted comment letters to the SEC, the U.S. Treasury, the AICPA’s Auditing Standards Board and Accounting Standards Executive Committee, the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board on a myriad of issues. The Personal Financial Planning Committee was instrumental in providing assistance to the World Trade Center victims, with members volunteering time to staff a table at an aid center in lower Manhattan. A new committee on global accounting came to fruition, too. Member Relations Membership activity increased dramatically throughout the state in 2001-2002. Reports on the NYSSCPA’s 17 chapters reflected the Society’s continuing focus on serving its members throughout New York. The Society’s six newest chapters—Adirondack, Brooklyn, Central Southern Tier, Manhattan/Bronx, Queens, Rockland—hit the ground running in their first full year of operation and received passing grades in reports authored by G. William Hatfield, the NYSSCPA vice president for chapters. All of the new chapters established viable chapter leadership structures, and held a variety of both CPE and non-CPE events, according to a “New Chapter Evaluation Criteria Report.” These events included meetings with representatives of the AICPA and NYSSCPA to discuss the Institute’s global credential in September, ethics presentations and officers visitations, and other gatherings that provided networking opportunities for members. The Rockland Chapter, for example, held a professional networking function with 180 CPAs in attendance. The Manhattan/Bronx Chapter took an interest in New York City politics when it held a debate for candidates seeking to take former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s place in the 2001 elections. By June 2002, each of the new chapters was officially seated on the NYSSCPA Board of Directors, and already had a slate of officers in place for the current fiscal year, the report stated. Most of the new chapters had established committees, too. Veteran chapters found members involved in activities ranging from charity sponsorship to active recruiting drives to encourage students to become CPAs. Every chapter held some kind of career day or school visitation. The Buffalo Chapter met with high school guidance counselors and college professors in a panel discussion on career opportunities for CPAs. Buffalo’s Young CPAs Committee also sponsored a local high school club to attend a statewide accounting tournament. Northeast and Rochester chapters made efforts to reconnect with local educators and schools to stir increased interest in the profession, while the Southern Tier Chapter took high school students on a tour of CPA firms. Chapters last year dealt with the public more than ever. Members of the Syracuse Chapter represented the profession at the New York State Fair, which drew one million visitors. And members of the Mid-Hudson Chapter volunteered their services to help victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in a program called CPAs for USA. A popular event for all chapters combined the annual officers visitation with two free CPE hour credits on ethics, held in cooperation with the Society-endorsed professional liability insurance carrier, Camico. From the fall of 2001 to the winter of 2002, then President Nancy Newman-Limata, then President-Elect Jo Ann Golden and Executive Director Louis Grumet visited every chapter, drawing more than 2,500 members, including 500 attendees to the Manhattan/Bronx Chapter officers visitation and ethics CPE session. Attendance exceeded staff expectations. Chapters also brought home the debate on the AICPA’s proposed global credential, XYZ, in forums that, for many, featured representatives from the Institute who tried to make their case and hear the concerns of NYSSCPA members. The forums showed strong opposition to the proposal, which was subsequently defeated in a nationwide vote of the AICPA membership. While members got charged up over the issues, the Society made plans to get more high school students charged up for a career in the profession. In 2001-2002, the Society’s Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession (COAP) program expanded to two new sites to serve twice as many students as it could in the past. The program, established in 1987 to encourage promising minority high school students to pursue an accounting education and a career as a CPA, for years offered summer residency sessions at Hofstra University and Pace University. This year it added sessions at Long Island University in Brooklyn and Westchester Community College. Most of the planning and coordinating occurred between January and May 2002 for the program that is usually held every June. The Society’s marketing department developed and marketed the Advance a Career campaign. The campaign, which targeted associate membership categories, offered NYSSCPA members up to eight hours of free CPE for every successful referral they made to the Society. Overall, the Society’s membership increased slightly in 2001-2002 over the previous fiscal year. Membership in June 2000 officially was 31,942. That fell to 29,686 a year later, after the Society removed from the rolls members who hadn’t paid their dues in more than a year. But according to a count taken just after the 2001-2002 year, the membership was slightly up, at 29,776. The Trusted Professional Never has the monthly newspaper of the NYSSCPA been as busy as it was in the 2001-2002 fiscal year. New sections, a special issue and coverage of hot current events made an exciting time for The Trusted Professional staff and the Society members who have contributed articles, letters to the editor and regular columns. The AICPA’s proposed global credential dominated front-page headlines, up to the moment it was defeated in a national vote in November. The newspaper took special care to show both sides of the debate, in member-authored articles, editorials and news stories. Our reporters also wrote on the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Society’s efforts to help the victims. In the months following the tragedy, several members and CPA-affiliated business persons took the time to contribute informative articles on different tax breaks, filing extensions and financial assistance programs available to businesses and individuals victimized by the attacks. Beginning with the fall of Enron, The Trusted Professional was the source of information on proposed accountability measures and the Society’s efforts to work with New York officials to help shape the future of the profession in the state. The newspaper expanded with new sections and a special student issue. The Trusted Professional last October distributed more than 5,000 copies of the student issue to accounting departments at more than 30 colleges and universities statewide, garnering enthusiasm from educators and members alike, establishing the section as an annual feature. More significantly,
the newspaper established its highly successful Chapter Newsletters section.
Beginning with its debut in April 2002, the new section immediately drew
regular member- Meanwhile, Society members increasingly grace the pages of the paper’s main section. Members of committees, like the Emerging Technologies Committee, have established regular columns, while the newspaper has made more efforts to include news about members in industry, most notably through our interviews with the chairs of the Industry Oversight Committee. Fiscal Information Society Treasurer Frank J. Aquilino this past summer presented the 2002-2003 combined NYSSCPA and FAE program budget, which the board of directors approved. It includes a forecasted $579,000 surplus. Highlights of the budget include:
The audit for the fiscal year ending May 31, 2002, shows a net loss of $896,000 for all entities. Included in the consolidated audit are the state Society, FAE, New York State Society CPA PAC, Inc., and the NYSSCPA Benevolent Fund. Given positive developments including a 23 percent jump in dues receipts from August 2001 and 17 percent increase in FAE registration, the Society appears to have turned a corner on the 2001-2002 poor fiscal outlook, with the organization poised to achieve greater fiscal stability in 2002-2003. Public Relations: Making the Most of Challenges A failed attempt to establish a controversial global business credential, the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, a string of corporate scandals and increased scrutiny of the accounting profession kept the Society’s public relations efforts in full gear during the 2001-2002 fiscal year. But when faced with a litany of challenges and almost daily developments, the Society repeatedly rose to the occasion. With tremendous support from the Public Relations Department and Committee, in particular, the Society provided media outlets with valuable insight and analyses on financial matters, relayed vital information on NYSSCPA initiatives to assist Sept. 11 victims, and clearly defined the organization’s position and views on a number of accounting-related issues. In the days and months following the Enron, WorldCom and other corporate debacles, the Society’s state and chapter leaders participated in more than 250 interviews, articles, editorial board meetings and seminars with print and broadcast media on a variety of topics, including proposed accounting reform legislation, both state and federal, lack of investor confidence in financial statements, SEC certifications, pension reform and 401(k)s. Then President Newman-Limata authored a series of articles on “Understanding Financial Statements” that ran in the New York Post, too, which are now featured on our website at www.nysscpa.org. The Society-sponsored basic, intermediate and advanced courses on financial statement interpretation drew approximately 300 journalists from well-known media outlets, including the Associated Press, the Post, Crain’s New York Business and CNN. The increased scrutiny of the profession also inspired the Public Relations Department to introduce a Media Relations column in The Trusted Professional. The column provides CPAs with proven media techniques should they find themselves being interviewed about the profession, and is also a useful resource for firms wanting to generate publicity for their practices. Like so many organizations throughout the state and the country, the Society conducted a Sept. 11 victims volunteer program that provided CPA advice and expertise to affected businesses and individuals, answering their financial, tax and government filing questions. The Mid-Hudson Chapter also ran a CPAs for USA program for victims’ families who lived in the area. To make certain the public knew of the assistance, Society volunteers and officers held interviews with major media, including NBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg News and Money magazine, among others. Though in the works since May 2000, the AICPA’s proposed global credential, also known as XYZ and Cognitor, took up much of the profession’s interest and conversation in 2001 and early 2002. Institute members ultimately rejected the initiative in a referendum vote by almost two to one, with 63 percent opposed and 37 percent in favor, but the outcome can be attributed in no small part to the Society, which assumed a lead role in opposing the credential. Prior to the vote, the NYSSCPA and the AICPA jointly sponsored meetings across the state to better educate Institute members on the pros and cons of the credential; the sessions reaffirmed New York’s opposition to XYZ. Certain that the concept was misguided and would open the profession to unnecessary competition by allowing non-CPAs to obtain the designation, the Society took a vocal stance against the credential, participating in interviews with Practical Accountant, Bowman’s Accounting Report, Public Accounting Report, BusinessWeek, Reuters News Service and many other publications. NYSSCPA Executive Director Louis Grumet contributed a regular column in Accounting Today discussing various aspects and reasons to vote against what eventually became known as the Strategic Business Professional. Through The Trusted Professional, Newman-Limata sent a letter to New York CPAs asking them to vote “No” on the initiative. The Society even created a special postcard sent out to the entire membership, also requesting that they vote against the proposal. In what has become a tax-season tradition, the Society again helped New Yorkers with their tax-filing questions. In April 2002, NYSSCPA volunteers manned a special taxpayer panel hotline furnished and publicized through the New York Daily News. Six Society members joined a tax advisory panel and wrote articles for Investment Advisor Magazine. Taxpayers also were able to find year-end tax tips in the Sound Advice section of the Society’s website. In addition, the Society helped coordinate 107 interviews on tax-related subjects, held press briefings on President Bush’s tax plan and met with the Internal Revenue Service regarding joint publicity programs. Regarding other financial matters, the Society distributed monthly management columns to the state’s weekly newspapers, and coordinated member interviews on college savings plans, retirement issues and charitable giving, among other topics. The organization held press briefings on “How to Be Financially Fit,” and Alan Kahn, then chair of the Public Relations Committee, started a regular weekly personal finance segment on CNNfn. Advice, valuable information and community involvement came in other shapes and sizes, too. Just a few of the Society’s helpful events and projects in 2001-2002 included a breakfast with candidates for New York City mayor, two credit card debt seminars, two small business seminars, a Staten Island Chapter Bowl-a-Thon, and a Buffalo Chapter Snow Storm Tax Tips initiative. In an effort to draw young people’s attention to the opportunities that an accounting career affords, the Society created and paid for two recruitment ads that ran in college newspapers throughout New York state. Plans are in the works to rerun the ads during the current fall semester. In the midst of all this, the Society also found time to develop and distribute a year-end survey that gauged the economic outlook of 600 Society members across the state. As in past years, the NYSSCPA presented the Excellence in Financial Journalism Awards, honoring reporters whose work creates a better understanding of business topics. And despite grueling schedules, members also contributed pro bono services to various nonprofit organizations including the International Sculpture Center, the Broadway Theater Institute and the Fero-Grumley Literary Awards, among others. Governmental Relations Perhaps no segment of the Society was more on the front line of current events this year than those members who met face to face with state officials responding to the accounting and corporate responsibility crisis that began at the end of 2001. NYSSCPA representatives stood up for the profession at public hearings and roundtable debates in what may have been the Society’s busiest months in government relations in some time. Members made frequent trips to Albany and New York City as the State Board for Public Accountancy and legislators (particularly Sen. Kenneth LaValle and the Higher Education Committee he chairs) opened discussion on what the state should do in light of Enron and other scandals. In early February, Society members Allen L. Fetterman, Vincent J. Love and Marilyn A. Pendergast testified at a Higher Education Committee hearing in New York City. Pendergast later that month joined Katharine K. Doran and Kevin J. McCoy in Albany for a second round of hearings, also sponsored by the committee. Members participated in a roundtable discussion in Albany in March. In May 2002, the Society presented testimony at a public hearing conducted by the New York State Education Department and the state board of accountancy. The Society consistently pushed for a return to principles-based accounting, opposing any unilateral prohibition of nonaudit services, any mandatory rotation of audit firms, and “cooling-off” periods between the time a CPA audits a client and the time the same client hires the auditor. Instead, the Society championed an independent board of accountancy with sharp teeth— investigative, enforcement and disciplinary powers—but still under the auspices of the state education department. The Society also sought a number of other requirements, such as mandatory CPE, registration of firms and licenses, and the adoption of a code of ethics by the New York State Board of Regents. In April, the Society submitted a draft bill to Sen. LaValle reflecting these reforms to address Enron-related issues. None of the bills the Society opposed that would have restricted nonaudit services by auditors were passed in the 2002 legislative session. Meanwhile, the Society in May began planning legislative breakfasts with the Rochester and Mid-Hudson chapters, which were held in June, and gave members the opportunity to discuss the issues with their state representatives. Enron pushed other longstanding issues to the back burner. In November 2001, the state board of education released the results of its survey of CPAs and licensed public accountants on accounting issues, including the 150-hour requirement, mandatory peer review, and non-CPA ownership of accounting firms. Although some questions in the survey appeared biased, the results cast doubt on support by CPAs for a number of the provisions proposed in the Society’s Uniform Accountancy Act bill, introduced in the state legislature in February 2001 and representing the first comprehensive change to the state accountancy law since 1947. Society leadership met with the board of accountancy in the fall of 2001 and in January 2002 to attempt to resolve differences over the UAA legislation, but by winter 2001-2002, America’s attention turned to the scandals. Still, the Society kept a close eye on the actions of the board of accountancy with respect to its position on a proposed contract between the National Association of the State Boards of Accountancy, the AICPA and Prometric, for development of a computer-based CPA exam. The contract for the computer-based exam was signed in May, despite opposition by the New York and five other accountancy boards. Implementation is expected by the spring of 2004. Governance Committed to being the professional organization of choice for all New York state CPAs, the Society made critical decisions and implemented valuable initiatives in the 2001-2002 fiscal year, but perhaps none of the steps taken will have more far-reaching, beneficial implications than the development and careful advancement of a strategic planning process. Building from a report created by a task force established in June 2001 and submitted to the NYSSCPA Board of Directors on Dec. 4 and 5, 2001, the draft strategic plan focuses on the direction the Society will take over the next 30 years. It encompasses a number of core objectives that collectively seek to better serve the membership, advance the profession and maintain the public trust in CPAs. Though the NYSSCPA leadership continues to refine the plan and currently is seeking feedback by the membership, the draft document includes supporting resolutions to be incorporated into the plan. The resolutions focus on education, committees, chapters and advocacy. The plan places a particular emphasis on the next three to five years and incorporates three separate goals that address professional development—principally concerning CPE offered through FAE—advocacy of the profession, and recognition and visibility of the CPA, and are strategically tied to the resolutions. No annual report would be complete without mention of the Annual Conference, but the 2001-2002 conference stood apart from past years as it combined for the first time the traditional Annual Conference with the Annual Leadership Meeting. Named the 2001 Annual Leadership Conference, the four-day event included workshops where committee chairs collaborated with chapter officers to provide guidance for new and established committees. Also during the event, young CPA and CPA candidates conferred with seasoned professionals to tap into their experience. Meanwhile, the board of directors met to discuss pressing issues like the AICPA’s proposed global credential, ultimately defeated in a membership vote, and the CPA2Biz portal. On the second day of the conference, June 10, 2001, the board voted to cease NYSSCPA participation with other state societies through the State Societies Network, Inc. (SSNI) in the launch of the AICPA’s CPA2Biz e-business venture, thereby precluding integration of the Society’s membership list into CPA2Biz. Originally
established in 1999 by CPA societies as a vehicle through which state
societies could share costs in areas such as printing, accounting, technology
and dues collection, SSNI is the legal entity that formed a joint venture
with the AICPA called Shared Services LLC (SSLLC) to provide shared services
to both state societies and the AICPA. The board’s decision proved fortuitous, as it was announced in March 2002 that negotiations involving SSNI, SSLLC and CPA2Biz failed to yield a contract that was acceptable to all parties. The 2001 Annual Leadership Conference also included an update on independence issues that at the time were under discussion at the SEC, and a look into “business-to-business” e-commerce developments in the profession. Pleased with the first one, the Society held its Second Annual Leadership Conference from July 14 to July 16 of this year. The past fiscal year also witnessed several other improvements and measures, including the initiation of a new board member orientation; enhanced support for the nominating process; the development of antitrust and conflict-of-interest policies for consideration by the board; and the launch of a contract database tracking system, among others. Finally, in keeping with its mission to be an active and helpful presence in the state and local community, the Society, like many organizations throughout New York, conducted a volunteer program to assist victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The program drew several hundred volunteers who made themselves available to the public at 110 Maiden Lane (New York City’s Assistance Center) in downtown Manhattan, four blocks from ground zero. Through a well-publicized program, the volunteers helped hundreds of victims, assisting and advising them in the areas of loan and grant applications, taxes, financial planning, record reconstruction and other areas. The program consisted of two phases, the first of which began days after the attack with an initial request by the Society for members to help World Trade Center– area victims. It grew to include an (800) hotline and the 110 Maiden Lane help center, where volunteer CPAs sat with victims to advise and help them meet their immediate and future financial needs. The second phase allowed WTC victims to continue to receive assistance and advice by talking one-on-one with CPAs via telephone. As a result of the efforts, many community organizations became familiar with the NYSSCPA and plan to include the Society in their literature and meetings. The volunteer program offered important information and help to those affected by the WTC tragedy and set a precedent and model that the Society should look to in the future. |
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