What a year! I can’t think of a minute when we were able to stop and come up for air. The year started even before the year started when on the Monday morning after convention, I checked my emails over a cup of coffee early in the morning and found a message regarding a matter that deserved immediate action and attention for the protection of the profession. Developing a plan of action quickly did not appear to be in the cards as there were several principal issues to be weighed. Yet there was a very tight deadline. I had a new Board and a new Chairman and officers coming in the following week. Which way do I turn? I will talk more about this later in this report, but I will tell you now that a virtual special meeting of the new Board was held on July 3 (a holiday week and 3 days into our new year) with almost 100% in attendance.

I share this story to amplify how thankful I am for our MSCPA leadership, Board of Governors, and members whose assistance is integral to my work and to the work of the society--work that we do to protect our members and the profession. Membership in the Society is voluntary. And once a member, those who volunteer for committees and leadership positions in our chapters or on our Board do so willingly (well I do twist some arms from time to time), and they serve you and are essential to us. When you see them, thank them for their service. I try to thank them when I see them. Please consider becoming one of them too.

August came with our first official Board meeting, three conferences, and the roll out of the Ambassador Program for high school student outreach. The Membership Committee was resurrected to set the course for the program. Chapter presidents were assigned to the committee in order to blanket the state. We also put out a call to the membership for other committee volunteers and received more. We also asked for members to become ambassadors to help us with school events. We got them too. There are approximately 30 on the list from around the state. Over the next several months we estimate we reached 3,000+ students at career fairs and classroom presentations from the coast and up to Tupelo. Special thanks to Randa Craig and Hollie Ballard in those two areas, respectively, and to Blaise Sonnier in the Southeast area. To Phillip Chu, Lydia Windham, Peyton Gordon, and James Henley in the Central area, along with Lynne Godfrey with MCL who is chairing the committee and is doing a wonderful job plotting our courses of action. It is a daunting task, but we are making progress and have plans to expand our outreach in the new year.

The Fall was filled with six conferences, AICPA Council, two Board meetings, our annual audit, two weeks of Days of Service, holiday events, project meetings for our new platform, and the BOI ping pong tournament which caused everyone severe whiplash. We also implemented the free mock CPA exam and had approximately 70 students register for the first exam. We scheduled three mock exams for this calendar year. We also hired a new Marketing & Communications Director in November. Please welcome Rachel Shirley to our staff.
From January to April, we assembled CPA classes for the calendar year, uploaded them to the website by February 15th, created and published the CPE Catalog, completed convention planning and secured sponsorships, and published the convention brochure along with three Newsletters, all while our new platform project meetings were weekly and became biweekly. The young CPAs kicked off CPE busy season in April with their conference.

May started with a bang with our annual Committee Day, Leadership Luncheon, and final Board meeting. It was a great day! We also went live with our new website and platform on May 5th. We are still in the learning stages and have project meetings almost every day for training and to tweak some issues, but overall things have gone smoothly. Going live and throwing out all other software and our database during CPE busy season is crazy to even phantom, and throw in an upcoming convention to really make it fun. But we did and lived to tell about it. For those who registered online for convention on the new website, I hope you found it much easier. For those who have registered for and attended CPE classes, I hope your experiences are much better and you enjoy the ding when a polling question pops up. It’s worth the money for that ding! You notice that our email blasts now have a new look as they are incorporated in the platform as well. Also, if we are marketing just one class or conference at a time, we are able to only send the emails to those who have not registered for the event. The platform’s CONNECT Forum is also quite easy to use for those posting in the Member Forum and for use by the committees. We encourage you to utilize these features.

May also brought forth three more conferences, Capitol Hill visits, and AICPA Council where our own Jan Lewis was elected Vice Chair of the AICPA! What a moment to remember for those of us who were there. We waited anxiously all day, and the vote finally came at 5:15 in the afternoon. The huge screens showed Jan’s headshot and written underneath it was MISSISSIPPI SOCIETY OF CPAs! Jan sat very peacefully and stoic at our table, but I believe her heart was skipping a few beats. I cried. The icing on the cake was when our Elected Council Representative Cheryl Sykes beat all others in the ballroom to the punch and seconded the motion to elect Jan. We are immensely proud of Jan. She is a tremendous ambassador of the profession and our state, and I thank her for all she does to help me and keep me informed and is always there when I need her.

Jan has been an asset to our advocacy efforts on both the local and national stages as well. Going back to the story I began this report with, let me share more information. A group had filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Mississippi, which if successful, would have expanded the role of an auditor to catch all fraud and would have allowed most anyone to sue, thereby destroying privity of contract. The ramifications to the profession and our members would detrimentally affect malpractice insurance and the fact that no one would want to audit in the state under these conditions, which would ultimately have an impact on the state economy as well. The email l received that morning was a request for the MSCPA to file an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the profession. I didn’t even know what an amicus brief was, but the Lord once again blessed me with a Chairman who is a lawyer. Legal fees for a brief can be very costly—up to $30,000. Knowing a negative ruling in this case would eventually affect the profession nationwide, I called Jan to inquire if the AICPA could possibly help us. She connected us with the right people, and the AICPA agreed to employ their lawyers and those in the state who would have to actually file the brief. In the end, the brief was filed timely, and the Supreme Court eventually denied the group’s appeal. This was a victory with a huge sigh of relief. While the AICPA did not charge us a dime, we did make a contribution to their Foundation which awards scholarships.

One more thing on advocacy, upon our recommendation, the Governor appointed Ricky Bullock to the State Board to fill the vacancy of Rick Elam’s stepping down after serving for 20 years. We now have four past MSCPA Chairmen on the State Board.

Here we are presently, and once the dust settles after CPE season and year end, the Alternate Pathway to Licensure Task Force that Tom formed will be working diligently to bring a recommendation to the Board at the August meeting. If the recommendation is approved, we will put things into play with the legislature to draft a bill for the 2026 session. The alternate pathway adds the option of licensure with a bachelor’s degrees plus 2 years’ experience plus passing the CPA exam. Current statistics are: 21 states have passed new legislation or new rules to implement—another 8 have legislation in play. Effective dates vary from before the end of 2025, January 1, 2026, July 1, 2026, and January 1, 2027. Change is coming rapidly. Our Task Force includes: Ed Jones, Chair (State Board Liaison); Anita Goodrum (Chairman of the Board), Cheryl Sykes (AICPA Council Rep), Wil Crawford (ForvisMazars), and Blaise Sonnier (USM). Ex officio members are Sharee Brewer (State Board Executive Director) and myself.

Throughout the year our chapters held vari ous events. The Gulf Coast Chapter hosted a fall social event at the Aquarium and invited members from around the state. Several of us drove down to Gulfport. They also had CPE lunch & learns. Delta, Southwest, and Northeast Chapters held their annual CPE events. The Southeast Chapter held a CPE luncheon and elected new officers in February. The Central Chapter held quarterly lunch & learns and also held an after-tax season social recently. Wil Crawford serves as the Chapter’s VP of Programs and is responsible for securing speakers. He was determined to pack the house this year. His mission was accomplished at their April meeting when all seats in our training room were filled to hear State Treasurer David McRae and State Auditor Shad White. The chapter also elected new officers and Board representatives that day.

Our young CPAs continue to carry the torch at our colleges and universities by representing us at Meet the Firms events and making presentations on campuses. I am grateful for their dedication to the Young CPA Network, and I take pride in watching them take on leadership roles in the MSCPA and in their firms and businesses. President Andres Posada and the YCPA Board have done an outstanding job this year. Absolutely amazing! Andres is usually two steps ahead of me and always willing to help with anything, going above and beyond which is greatly appreciated. Congratulations and thank you!

It was also my pleasure to work alongside Chairman Tom Walker. He truly has the best interests of the MSCPA and our members at heart. He is objective and weighs the options on each matter at hand as a lawyer should. He is a forward thinker, but most of all he is a tremendous asset to the Society. Thank you, Tom, for your dedicated service.

In closing, please know that it is my honor and privilege to serve as your President/CEO.