By Michael D. Colgan, CEO and executive director

The PICPA bylaws play an important role in the governance of our association and serve as our guiding principles. Membership recently approved a series of bylaws revisions to reflect the significant changes taking place in our profession. These trends include demographic shifts, an ever-changing business environment, technological advancements, as well as demands on people’s time. While these factors all impact the profession, they also affect the PICPA, which must be able to adapt to an evolving environment. With this in mind, PICPA leadership evaluated the bylaws and recommended that changes be made to ensure continued relevance and viability. PICPA Council, at its April 25, 2017, meeting, approved these bylaws revisions and recommended that they be presented to membership for a vote. The voting period concluded Aug. 7, 2017, and all the proposed changes were approved.

The most significant changes are as follows:

• Distinguish PICPA’s CPA members by adding “CPA” to relevant membership titles (Article I).
• Enable broader PICPA growth in the accounting and finance areas by adjusting the requirements of the Associate Member category and creating a new non-CPA member category for CGMA credential holders (Article I and Article II).
• Recognize the current practices and demographics of the chapters to ensure adequate resources (Article XI).
• Strengthen fiduciary oversight by creating standing Investment and Audit committees (Article VI and Article XV).
• Reflect the changing nature of member participation at the annual business meeting (Article VIII).

Additional amendments include the following:

• Remove the requirement to elect a trustee of the Scholarship Fund because the scholarship fund will now be under the new Pennsylvania CPA Foundation (Article IV, Section 4).
• Update the treasurer duties to reflect current practice (Article IV, Section 9).
• Remove the requirement that the president is an ex-officio member of all committees. This is also to reflect current practice (Article VI, Section 7).
• Change the annual meeting travel reimbursement policy for the Board to apply only to meetings outside of Pennsylvania.
• Other updating and housekeeping items.

All of the proposed changes garnered more than a 90 percent approval by those members who voted, with the exception of the change to add a CGMA Associate Member category, which passed with almost 85 percent approval. While these changes emphasize the importance of our core CPA membership base, the CGMA Associate Member category provides us with an opportunity to engage and admit other professionals who work in the finance and accounting space with our CPAs.

I want to thank the PICPA Bylaws Committee and Council for their foresight to recommend these revisions, as well as the members who took time to cast their ballots. If you have any thoughts on PICPA’s governance or bylaws, I would be happy to hear from you.