NASBA TASK FORCE CONSIDERS NEW PATH TO LICENSURE BY NATALIE ROONEY The Concept The goal is to create a long-term, flexible plan that can offer a path to licensure that would not be on an accredited transcript but is still defined in great detail. It would include an education and experience component to measure competency to become a licensed CPA and would be considered equivalent to the current 150-hour pathway as defined in the UAA as an alternative to the flexible 30 hours needed for licensure. The concept would: Be cost effective so that graduates who have a bachelor’s degree with an accounting concentration may get right to work earning money. Establish an equivalent pathway in the UAA to meet the flexible 30 hours component. Protect the public interest. Allow for quick pivots in the future. It would not rely on universities to change their curriculum. Meet requirements that may already be in place within larger accounting firms. CONTINUED ON PAGE 30 THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING AND, now, a new NASBA task force is examining how CPA licensure may need to change as well. When Stephanie M. Saunders, CPA, shareholder of Saunders & Saunders PC, stepped into her role as the 2023-2024 chairman of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), she had been pondering about the possible need for changes to the CPA licensure model. “I recommended to NASBA leadership that now is the appropriate time to create a task force to examine the subject,” she says. “The AICPA had already formed their National Pipeline Advisory Group (NPAG) to study and provide solutions to the CPA pipeline issue, so the timing was right.” During her inaugural address at NASBA’s 116th Annual Meeting, Saunders announced the formation of the Professional Licensure Task Force. The group’s charge is to consider new concepts for CPA licensure that may be included in the Uniform Accountancy Act (UAA) in order to update the current licensure model. Why Now? Central to the timing of the licensure discussion is the CPA pipeline crisis. “State Boards of Accountancy, State CPA Societies, and academia are all actively discussing the pipeline. The mainstream media are reporting on it,” Saunders points out. “We need to understand why students are choosing majors other than accounting and why CPAs are leaving the profession in record numbers.” Saunders considers work-life balance the No. 1 reason behind decisions to enter and leave the profession. Data also shows the 150-hour education requirement, starting salaries that aren’t commensurate with the additional education, and the image of the profession in general as additional barriers to entry. “Five years of college can be a financial challenge for students,” Saunders says, referring to the 30 extra hours needed to meet the 150-hour requirement. “If we want to increase the pipeline and have a more diverse profession, it needs to be more affordable for people to obtain the extra, flexible 30 hours.” Saunders says NASBA is unable to fix the current work-life balance demands, starting salaries, or the current image of the profession, “but Boards of Accountancy provide direction, as regulators, to their state legislatures on the licensure model via statutes and rules. And I wanted a task force comprised of different stakeholders to ask what we can do to pass muster.” Whatever the solution, Saunders emphasizes that it must be a collective effort. Several State CPA Societies and State Boards of Accountancy have already discussed reverting to 120 hours of education and two years of experience. Concerned about how such moves would impact substantial equivalency, mobility, and reciprocity, Saunders was part of a group that met with leaders in those states. “We really want to work with these states,” she says. “It took us 20 years to reach consensus on the 150-hour education requirement and become substantially equivalent. Now, we could be facing potential problems, including the loss of CPA mobility.” 29 nescpa.org
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