Council Happenings

By Patricia K. Krout, CPA

Gail Anikouchine, chapter first vice president, and I recently attended the CalCPA Annual Members’ Business and Council meeting in Anaheim. The following are some highlights.

Conrad Davis was installed as CalCPA chair and shared his vision and goals for the year, which include mentorship and leadership development. During his address, he emphasized that California CPAs are part of something larger—a profession—and that we all have a responsibility to sustain it, protect it and nourish it. He said this means adding new members and developing leaders, while continuing to meet the needs of our existing members.

“As we move ahead with our careers, we also can help lift up a peer or an emerging professional,” he said. Conrad believes that mentoring is necessary for the advancement of the accounting profession.

We also heard from Manual Ramirez, chair of the California Board of Accountancy, who urged us to respond to a call to public involvement. The CBA is considering how “complaints and accusations” against CPAs are to be treated as part of its obligation to protect consumers. The Department of Consumer Affairs has drafted a memo requiring the CBA to post all accusations against CPAs on the internet. Currently, the CBA posts a summary of any formal accusations against a licensee. He also spoke about mobility issues, which passed in all states except California and Hawaii. He wants all members to get involved in the profession and express their opinions on these and other bills being presented.

At the breakfast for chapter presidents and first vice presidents, Greg Burke presented the CalCPA Institute Scholarship Task Force Recommendations. Scholarships are vital chapter activities and the task force was formed in response to requests from members. Many recommendations were presented, some of which we hope to incorporate into our scholarship fund-raising activities and best practices.

We were reminded during the presentation that the accounting profession is facing a severe shortage of doctorates to teach the next generation of CPAs. There has been a growing demand for accounting professors, which has resulted in an inadequate supply of accounting Ph.D.s, and accounting programs are experiencing great difficulty recruiting new faculty members. The inadequate supply of accounting faculty has been exacerbated by the number of existing baby boomer faculty beginning to retire. There are many reasons why the shortage exists and major CPA firms, the AICPA and the Institute of Management Accountants have launched initiatives to encourage professionals to pursue Ph.D.s. CalCPA has funded a Ph.D. scholarship to which all the chapters have contributed, but the job is far from complete. Expect to hear more about this topic in the future.

One other item shared was the exciting news that CalCPA now has more than 36,000 members. I hope that we can continue to increase CalCPA—and chapter—membership. Please join me in inviting other CPAs who are not members into our chapter. Don’t forget our ABC (Attorneys, Bankers and CPAs) night coming up this month Aug. 12. Use it as an opportunity to increase the value of your membership.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 3:11 pm and is filed under President's Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.