Meeting & Agendas

Approval of Minutes from the Last Meeting - Approved unanimously without modifications Meeting Attendance for 11/29/2023:Board Attendees: Kate Rhoden (Zoom), Julie Sigety, Lisa Sretenovic, Donna Boykin, Mike Figer (Zoom), Joe Mader (Zoom), Chris Noak, Jon Lemon (New) ACC Attendees: Reed Peoples, Jay Thibodeaux, Denise White, Kimberly Cameron, Kristy McDermott, May Wang (Zoom), Larry Stephens, Okera Bishop, Yolonda Holland, Ardra Alexander (adjunct) Regrets: Connie Clark, Tony Ross, Chase Insogna, Gary Brown, Jim Pumphret, Jaclyn Roberts, Tracie Miller, Karina Parlato (not voted in yet), Melinda Oster (not voted in yet) ACC: La Tasha Roberts, Kelli Blount, Johnny Howard, Dean Lorlie Braxton

Jon Lemon (representing Durbin Bennett, Tax Advisors) would like to have a seat on the Advisory Board for his firm; the Board approved.

New Advisory Board Members: Karina Parlato (absent) Melinda Oster - Atchley & Associates, LLC (absent) Jon Lemon - Durbin Bennett

Announced that Larry Stephens is the department chair and Reed Peoples is assistant dean starting in Fall 2023 (switching roles). Reed has been the DC for 25 years and thanked the advisory committee for their many years of service. Administrative assistant left at the beginning of Fall semester. After the interview process, a job offer has been extended to a candidate and awaiting her acceptance. Currently have a vacancy for an assistant department chair to assist with the technician program. Larry is working with Dean Braxton on filling that position. Vacancy for full-time faculty position because our new hire has passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in his first semester. The dept plans to interview over the Spring semester so that we may have someone else to start by next Fall. The dept has also lost several adjunct faculty due to retirement or other job opportunities. A committee interviewed two candidates and made an offer to both. Chris O’Donnell, who is already working at ACC as an academic success coach for the high school program, has accepted the position and will begin this Spring. He even tutors students for the CPA exam. We are still waiting to hear back from the other candidate but she is a state auditor. Three more candidates are being interviewed tomorrow, so hopefully there will be more hires because we have the space available. 8-week Courses at NRG campus - Initiative to get students back on campus in a hybrid format, where some of the class is asynchronous and some time is face-to-face with the instructor. This is being offered across most of the business area of study. 4% increase in enrollment college-wide already for this Spring to date, compared to last Spring. For Spring 2024, we anticipate enrollment to exceed the 2923 count from Spring 2023 or at least be the same. And this will not include students that will enroll later in the 2nd 8 weeks of Spring. We believe that we will have around a 4% increase. Dr. Peoples stated that business administration students/enrollment has also been increasing and they have been adding new business courses to encourage students to get their AS in Business Administration and those students transfer to 4-year universities. So many of those students may plan to go on to get their CPA certification. Also, students that do not have a degree in accounting can take their courses with us and then Texas State will accept those students’ courses as the prerequisites for their Masters of Accountancy degree.

To recap, the CPA exam will be changing in January 2024 to have 3 core sections of the exam that every candidate must pass (financial, audit, & taxation). And then the candidates will select 1 discipline exam to pass in either BAR (business analysis & reporting), TCP (tax compliance & planning), or ISC (information systems & controls). Prior to this change, all students would be expected to pass 4 mandatory parts to the exam. The ISC discipline is new so educators are struggling to provide support to students planning to take this part of the exam because a lot of the material resides out of accounting, typically in computer science and information technology. The TX CPA Board has not answered whether or not they will accept these courses if they are provided outside of the accounting department. Larry plans to advise these students to take courses listed in the advanced technical certificate - CISA (computer information systems auditor), which is about half accounting and half computer science. Denise White asked about the new Survey of Taxation (ACNT 1374) course that was approved at the Spring 2023 Advisory Committee meeting. Kristy McDermott stated that the course cannot be officially added until we have the program revisions to include this new course in our current programs. Then we can seek approval from the curriculum & program committee for both the class and the revision to the program for our CPA candidate students. Larry Stephens explained that legislation had recently passed a law allowing students to be eligible to sit for the CPA exam after 120 credit hours, but all students are required to obtain a total of 150 credit hours to get their CPA license. The TX CPA Board has not been able to conclude which additional accounting & business classes are required for the 150 hour requirement, but based on the legislation, Larry Stephens has reorganized the program map for students to take all of the required classes and the corresponding electives in order for students to qualify to sit for the exam. The revised program will have students take certain electives, depending on which discipline part of the CPA exam they plan to take. The main difference for these students will be whether or not they plan to take the tax discipline because students that are NOT taking the tax discipline (TCP) will only take one tax class to satisfy the core requirement of tax that all students must pass. This is the Survey of Taxation (ACNT 1374) course that the advisory board approved in the Spring. This will be a robust course with individual taxation concepts, as well as an overview of corporations & partnerships. Students planning to take the tax discipline would not take this course because they will take Individual Taxation (ACNT 1331) as well as additional tax courses as their chosen electives. Students will also have the choice of taking Accounting Information Systems (ACNT 2332) or Data Analytics (ACNT 1373) to fulfill their upper division accounting hour requirement to sit for the CPA exam. We currently have ACNT 2332 as a prerequisite for ACNT 1373. Dr. Reed Peoples asked the committee which course would be more important for students to take in their career. Julie Sigety stated that she thinks it would be Data Analytics. Kate Rhoden agreed, and believes that is where our careers are heading with AI and data manipulation in general. Students can take both, but only one is ultimately required before they take the CPA exam. Under the new program, after four semesters, a student should have all of the upper division accounting requirements to sit for the CPA exam. Julie Sigety asked if students would have to finish the program before they can sit for the exam. Larry Stephens explained that they do not have to finish the program to be eligible to take the CPA exam, if they have enough upper division business and accounting courses to satisfy the legislation requirements otherwise. Plus, the recommended program changes will have 1 extra elective that the students will take over exam requirements because it fits into the recommended four semesters and it will still be required for the student to get their CPA license. In addition to these four semesters for their Advanced Technical Certificate Professional Accountant, there will be 3 additional courses that students will need to take in order to satisfy the 150-hour requirement for their CPA license. Accounting Ethics & Accounting Research and Analysis are two of these required courses for licensure. These courses are not required before taking the exam, therefore these final courses can be a separate occupational skills award (OSA). We can offer this OSA to students that may have passed the CPA exam from another college or university, but just need the final courses for licensure in Texas. Please note that there is also another legislative change that funding is based on student success, not enrollment. Therefore, having this broken down into 2 separate awards can be beneficial regarding completion for students that just need those last few courses for licensure and there could be many months/years between students passing all parts of the CPA exam and qualifying for licensure. The possibility of completing the professional technical certificate in four semesters also helps to market the program to potential students that they can be eligible for the CPA exam as quickly as 16 months. May Wang shared concerns regarding that AIS (ACNT 2332) should continue being a prerequisite for Data Analytics (ACNT 1373) and that it should not be considered an elective for students taking the exam because the contents of the class is part of the core for all students taking the CPA exam. Larry Stephens explained that his presentation is only based upon what is required by the legislation, but we can discuss whether to remove the prerequisite for Data Analytics in a separate discussion with further consideration. Kate Rhoden stated that she believes that students should be able to make the choice between the two, especially if only one has to be taken. Kate Rhoden made a motion to approve the program changes as presented to the advisory committee and Donna Boykin seconded the motion. Unanimously approved; none opposed. Motion carried.

ACC has partnered with Foundation Communities to start a VITA tax center in the HLC ACCelerator to provide tax services for low income families, including students. They hired 12 ACC students with paid positions ($22/hr) to be trained. Most of the students hired qualified for work-study. Over 400 students applied, with 80 students being business/accounting students. Chris Noak asked if we could get some metrics on the community impact from this endeavor. Kristy McDermott stated that she would make that request and explained that this would be open to the public, if they know of any low income taxpayers that may benefit from this service. She also explained that they could also be volunteers and earn up to 18 hours of CPE for their CPA license for their participation in the program.

We have apprenticeship opportunities for students which may be eligible for $1500 in tuition if qualified as an DOL apprentice. Dr. Reed Peoples asked how many students are already registered as apprentices. Kristy McDermott stated that we have about 3-4 active apprentices and we have about 4 open positions with TXDOT & TOOF (nonprofit). Jon Lemon stated that this sounds like an excellent opportunity to obtain good talent in tax and commended ACC for creating the Enrolled Agent program because that is in high demand.

Accounting Career Fair-Nov 11 - 11 employers & 50+ students, about the same as last year. It seemed successful from both employers and students. Mock CPA Exam (June & Oct) Upcoming student events for Spring Interview & Resume Workshop in February

(continued from last Spring discussion) Kimbery Cameron stated that Managerial (ACCT 2302) had been struggling with reaching their goals consistently so a committee met and created a new assessment and the students are already doing significantly better. The Summer students met the assessment goal, so we feel that this assessment better represents the expectations required of the students.

Wednesday Apr 24, 2024