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Author: Donny Burkett, CPA, Board Effectiveness and Legislative Support Committee Chair
Posted: April 30, 2013

During his inaugural address at NASBA’s Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL, Chair Gaylen Hansen charged each of NASBA’s committees to envision new ways NASBA could better respond to the needs of Boards of Accountancy within three key areas: leadership, engagement, and service. As Chair of the newly formed Board Effectiveness and Legislative Support Committee, I am pleased to announce that NASBA, under the leadership of John Johnson, Director of Legislative and Governmental Affairs, recently launched a new legislative tracking program to address each of these areas.

Leadership

Although legislative support is somewhat of a new focus for NASBA, the philosophy that informs that focus—ensuring that Boards of Accountancy have the tools to act on behalf of and protect the public interest—is longstanding. We regard the creation of the new legislative bill-tracking program as an important and unprecedented step to enhance the effectiveness and advance the common interests of all Boards of Accountancy by allowing Boards to become more readily aware of key pieces of legislation that could greatly impact their regulatory responsibility.

Engagement

The legislative bill-tracking program also addresses the deeper and growing need to foster greater unity and clarity among Boards of Accountancy by sharing information on complex legislative issues that Boards are currently facing, or may encounter at some point in the future. Issues such as: mobility, board consolidation, board independence and board funding, just to name a few. The availability of such information will provide opportunities for Boards to connect, collaborate, benefit from each other’s experiences and strengthen the overall effectiveness of the accounting profession.

Service

The legislative bill-tracking program is a service that allows Boards of Accountancy to gain important insights and a strategic advantage. After visiting the bill tracking page on NASBA’s website, you will see an interactive map. Jurisdictions highlighted on the map in green indicate that significant and relevant legislation has been filed. Simply click on a particular state or jurisdiction to obtain a list of bills that NASBA has tagged for tracking within that jurisdiction. You may also search by pre-determined topic areas to view legislation within multiple jurisdictions. The results produced allow members to scroll through a user-friendly inventory of bills and their summaries in order to study them in more depth.  Lastly, the system will allow NASBA to communicate directly to Boards of Accountancy through e-mail alerts and custom reports. 

We ask that you take the leadership initiative to give it a test drive and provide John Johnson ([email protected]) with your comments on enhancements to the system. We strongly believe that this new system will offer you, the Boards of Accountancy, NASBA and the lawmakers who will benefit from our engagement a means to enhance leadership, engagement and service in order to better protect the public.

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