December 2000

Southern Tier

The Southern Tier Chapter of the New York State Society of CPAs is located upstate along the New York/Pennsylvania border. The chapter is small in terms of membership but large in terms of geographic size. Less than 400 members represent the Oneonta, Binghamton, Elmira, and Ithaca areas.

Because of the chapter’s reach, meeting attendance is a problem. Many chapter activities are centrally located (mainly in the Binghamton/Triple Cities area), but members from Elmira, Ithaca, and Oneonta still must travel over an hour to attend. To address this problem, an

NYSSCPA task force recently polled the chapter’s membership to determine whether members would be interested in splitting the chapter in two.

In 2001, a new chapter is expexted to emerge from ours. Because of the large geographic area covered by the chapter, meeting attendance has sometimes been a problem in the past. Many chapter activities are centrally located (mainly in the Binghamton/Triple Cities area), but members from Elmira, Ithaca, and Oneonta still must travel over an hour to attend.

To address this problem, the NYSSCPA board of directors has approved a Society plan to create a new chapter within our area, effectively splitting our chapter's area in two. In June 2001, a new Society chapter will be formed in the western portion of the chapter (Ithaca and Elmira). We wish the new chapter well and offer any support we can give to help it succeed!

In the Southern Tier, the local economy has been growing rapidly—primarily in retail, but the flow down effect has been growth for all industries. The bad news is that we have relatively no labor pool. A previous decade of corporate downsizing and a shrinking defense industry resulted in a large population loss within our chapter, mainly in the southern areas. Although the need for CPA services, within both public accounting and private industry, is great and growing in the area, there are few qualified professionals to draw upon to meet those needs. As a result, competition for the same group of qualified individuals has created tension within the chapter.

To alleviate some of this tension, the chapter focus this year is on networking. Chapter members must pool resources and work together. We have drawn on other chapters for meeting ideas. A mystery dinner theatre in October was open to spouses and significant others. The mixture of nontraditional CPE breakfast and dinner meetings planned for the upcoming year is another step toward collaboration. Chapter members will meet with bankers, attorneys, and other groups to hear short speeches on topics of related interest. The chapter also plans on giving back to the community this year with a holiday food drive.

The chapter’s Young CPAs group has been slow in getting up and running, but several individuals are now willing to lead this group. Another main goal this year is to establish a core of individuals that will meet with local schools and youth groups to educate (and hopefully interest) them on careers in the accounting profession. I have asked every member in the chapter to dedicate 15 minutes a year to talking to a youth about the profession. Without the youth, the future of the trusted profession will be bleak. w