PROFESSIONAL NEWS

Former U.S. Comptroller General to Keynote Annual Meeting April 26

The Rhode Island Society of Certified Public Accountants will hold its annual meeting on Tuesday evening, April 26, at the Providence Marriott on Orms Street.

The keynote speaker for the event will be David Walker, who served as U.S. Comptroller General from 1998 to 2008, and is now the founder and chief executive officer of the Comeback America Initiative.

Robert A. Mancini, RISCPA’s executive director, believes that in tapping Walker as keynote speaker, the society has belted the proverbial home run.

“He was way ahead of the curve in terms of raising issues that we now recognize as urgent on the federal level, on a statewide level, and on a municipal level,” said Mancini.

Indeed, Walker, who has been referred to by former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker as the “Paul Revere of fiscal responsibility,” has earned the profound respect of lawmakers, lobbyists and economic watchdog groups. His message is simple: The nation’s finances are in disarray and it is going to take tough choices to get them in order.    

Through the Comeback America Initiative, Walker is working tirelessly to spread the word about those tough choices. He promotes fiscal responsibility and sustainability by engaging the public and assisting key policymakers on a nonpartisan basis to help achieve solutions to America’s federal, state, and local fiscal imbalances.

Among Walker’s points of emphasis is the idea that America’s state governments must be willing to convene all interested parties together with no important issue “off the table,” in a recent interview with What Counts. In advance of his upcoming visit here, Walker said that while he is no expert on the details of Rhode Island’s fiscal issues, there are obvious areas where those tough choices need to be made.

“It is, however, my understanding that Rhode Island’s taxes are well above average and that the state’s regulatory burdens and labor costs are greater than most states,” he said. “These represent obvious challenges to the state’s competitive posture that need to be addressed.”   

This year’s RISCPA Annual Meeting will be preceded by a brief business meeting at 5:30 p.m. and a reception and cocktail hour that will run from 6 p.m. until dinner at 7:15 p.m.

Mancini said that the pre-dinner activities provide a wonderful opportunity to recognize the “newly minted CPAs” who are now RISCPA members, as well as to conduct other business. Each year a “changing of the guard” takes place, he said. Martha Conn Hultzman will be installed as the RISCPA’s incoming president.

This year’s President’s Award will be given to Sharon R. Kennedy and the Mission Awards to John Mathias and Robert L.G. Batchelor. In addition, the Nicholas Picchione Awards will be presented, as will the Carl W. Christiansen and Cheryl A. Ruggiero Scholarships.      

The RISCPA heads into its Annual Meeting on a high note. In fact, the 1,800-member organization has never been stronger. Mancini said that over the past four years, membership has increased by more than 30 percent. The annual meeting, he said, is an opportunity to build on that momentum.