A different viewpoint on "the leaders' roundtable".

Dear Editor:

I read with great interest the story titled "Roundtable Discussion" in the May/June issue of the Catalyst. Some of the comments printed in the article were disturbing to me and prompted this response.

In the portion of the story dealing with the question concerning peer review/quality review/discipline, Mr. Landes makes the remark, "There are just too many people out there yet who are too willing to do almost anything."

I find this comment offensive and opposite to the information The Ohio Society and AICPA leadership have talked about over the last two years after the Arthur Andersen collapse and demise. I hope many members are offended by his comment. The Society and the AICPA have stressed the thousands and thousands of audits that are being done without any problems and/or fraud, and without any negative effects upon our economic system. For Mr. Landes to make such a broad-based outlandish statement is disappointing for someone in his position to make.

In answering the same question, Mr. Shamis makes the remark, "But the quality of the work that we see coming up from smaller firms is really alarming." Also he goes on to say, "There's a lot of bad work out there."

I find these comments disappointing to read. Mr. Shamis should be aware that The Ohio Society has an ethics process in place that could have addressed these issues over his years in practice and helped the profession improve as a whole. All he would have to do is to make a copy of the financial statement that he feels is "alarming" and submit it to the Ethics Committee of The Ohio Society. This way, over the years, he could have been proactive in helping the profession in this area and helped some of the problems he feels he has seen over the years. But instead, I assume, he has not done this.

I am confident, based upon the hundreds of members that I know, that these concerns are not widespread and, in fact, the facts of financial statement failures we have witnessed prove this. In fact, as reported in the March/April 2004 issue of the Catalyst, "the majority of Ohio firms enrolled in the peer review process take the program seriously."

Mr. Landes also states "You wonder about the quality of the people doing peer review." This is disappointing to read. Mr. Landes is clearly in the position to be proactive and do something about this if this is a true statement. I do not perform peer review, but I know some members who do and they would probably be offended by his statement. I make the assumption that our members are professional and take the role of peer reviewer seriously.

Mr. Landes would probably better serve the CPA profession by focusing on the states in America who do not even have a peer review process in place now. We, in Ohio, have been under the peer review process for over a decade, yet there are CPAs in other states who are not required to participate in a peer review process.

What the membership of the Society has to recognize is that we are all CPAs, but we do not all perform the same services. What I do, as a sole practitioner on a daily basis, probably has little in common with a CPA in industry and a CPA in a big national public firm. Yet, we are all united under the umbrella of CPA.

It is disappointing, in these overall comments, to see this shift taking place of blaming and finger pointing to the small firms and saying, in effect, you are what is wrong with the CPA profession. When if fact, this is not true. When in fact, the small firms (where a large percentage of our members work) are the ones who bear the burden and costs of the problems and lapses of the national firms.

The national firms only make up 5 percent of the membership of the Society, yet their effect upon the profession is huge. We need to keep the pressure on them. We need to raise the bar in judging their performance.

The profession, as a whole, needs to keep doing the right thing every day. And I believe the vast majority of the members reading this are doing the right thing every day.

If you are really interested in ethics and peer review, there are several steps that should be considered and discussed instead of coming to the conclusion that some members may come to from reading this article, that small firms can not do audits or reviews correctly.

Another member of the panel went as far as to say in regards to peer review, "we have to get to the entirely on-site kind of a concept if we can."

This will not solve the problem. It will make some feel better that they have done something, when in fact all that would do is drive up the cost of peer review greatly to the small firms and drive up the cost to business owners in Ohio, whose choices as far as CPA firms in Ohio could be limited.

Mr. Price asks the right question in the discussion of this topic "are they passing because firms have, in fact, elevated their quality of work?"

That's the question. The answer may be yes. It probably is based upon the members I know who take this profession seriously and want to do the right thing everyday.

As offensive and disappointing as these comments were in this portion of the article, the other portions of the article were very interesting and informative to read. I am disappointed that a sole practitioner and a CPA working in industry in a small company were not represented on the panel. This may be something for the Catalyst to change in the future since such a large percentage of our members fall into these areas.

These leaders who participated in this roundtable, like all leaders, clearly understand that words are powerful. When Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial four decades ago, and spoke the words "I have a dream," he understood the power and responsibility of words.

Words can move mountains, they can free people, they can imprison people, and they can destroy people.

These leaders must be more careful with the words they use and they must be proactive in helping the profession to focus on the real problems and concerns we are dealing with. Making broad, outlandish generalizations like I noted from the article, does not help us. It is not responsible at all. It hurts us as a profession.

The Catalyst magazine was invented as an Ohio business journal to not only be read by members, but also business leaders across the state of Ohio. Some of those business leaders may have read this article and come away with thoughts that many segments of our membership are not doing a good job. This is not accurate. This is not true.

The vast majority of our members are dedicated people who want to do a good job for their boss or their client. They under-stand the ethics involved in the world. They follow the rules and the law. And every day they are doing the right thing.

Sincerely,

Robert F. Fay, CPA

The opinions and views expressed are those of the letter writers and do not necessarily reflect those of The Ohio Society of CPAs.

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