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"A Snowball Started in Malibu" Unofficial slogan of CROP - so named as we first met in Malibu, California. Our hope is that a "snowball" will have begun that day......
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Survey Results of AICPA Members
CROP Position papers on
Dale W. Spradling, Ph.D., CPA
4747 Research Forest Dr., #180-256 Voice: (281) 364-7456 The Woodlands, Texas 77381 Email: dale@drtax.com
June 21, 2002
Fellow XYZer’s:
Note: Dale Spradling was unable to attend the meeting of the first XYZCaucus [renamed to CROP]. He graciously sent his thoughts and concerns over the status of our profession.
Sorry I can’t be there today. But after almost 25 years of marriage, I have learned when to hold em and when to fold em.
Here’s my take on where we should go for here:
We need a professional organization that follows a democratic/constitutional model, instead of the current corporate governance framework.
The corporate governance model is falling apart at the seams as we speak. The notion that an organization should be run by omnipotent “Masters of the Universe” who, in turn, treat the owners (i.e., members) as sheep no longer appears to work. Some of you have experienced first hand the conflict between the “paid managers” at the AICPA versus the “volunteer members.” Because the volunteers come and go, the paid staff, in the best-case scenario, tolerates the members. In the worst case, the staff berates them.
I recall, for example, commenting to a senior staff member that the combination of mandatory CPE for “Industry Members” and Peer Review was causing a lot of CPAs to drop their licenses. The cavalier response was, “Well good. Maybe getting rid of the deadwood will ease the pressure on fees.” The fact that membership dues paid his salary was apparently not a consideration.
I suggest, as an alternative, a constitutional model. A constitution is simply an agreement for sharing power. Or, as Encarta puts it, “a written statement outlining the basic laws or principles by which a country or organization is governed.”
Put another way; imagine the United States if neither Congress nor the Supreme Court existed! The result would be, ah, similar to the AICPA. That is, we’d have a President and the professional bureaucracy and nothing else.
I’ll leave the details of a constitutional approach to your imagination. Given our current technology, I think that a true democracy, versus a representative democracy will work, i.e. one vote per member done by email.
But, instead of getting bogged down in the details, however, let’s move on to the bigger picture. Assuming that you, as a group, are still with me, the concern now shifts to how do we, “...get there from here?”
As I see it, we have two choices:
1. Reform the AICPA from within, or 2. Start a new organization and eventually take over the AICPA.
There are, of course, pros and cons of each choice.
Option One, reforming the AICPA, is the cheapest and, perhaps, the most viable. All we need to do is to start a viable grass-root movement and, in maybe 3 to 7 years, the AICPA will be ours.
The major downside to the reform approach is the high probability that we will be “corrupted” along the way. Remember the politicians in 1992 who said that they were for term limits? “Vote for me, and I’ll stay no longer than two terms,” they said. Of course, when push turned to shove, just about all these reformers changed their mind, but only after they had been elected, of course.
The major problem with starting a new organization is that we will need some serious money just to get going. I have talked to folks who have started similar professional organizations and the word is that we will need at least $50,000, better yet $100,000. Because roughly 3,000 members is considered the critical mass necessary to put a new organization over the top, we will need startup marketing money to get the word out. (By-the-way, just in case anyone is interested, I do not happen to have a spare $50,000 lying around.)
To get going, we would have to line up monetary support from local and regional firms in the key states of California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas. That is, we need to start beating a small drum until we had enough funds to really make some noise.
The good news about the startup approach is that we can do it our way (sic) without having to worry about being co-opted by the system. Said another way, with the startup approach, we are more likely to end up with something close to what we wanted in the first place. If we try to reform the AICPA, odds are very good that, despite our best efforts, we will end up with something close to the existing model.
At any rate, I hope the meeting is productive and look forward to serving in the Bozo Army. Thanks so much for your time and effort.
Dale
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