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It’s quite simple, really. If you want more high-quality candidates, you have to make it worth their while.
That’s a major takeaway from the AICPA’s new report, which examines the state of the public-sector CPA profession based on six virtual forums and a survey of more than 900 government finance and audit professionals. According to the report, “although government entities may seldom offer monetary incentives, when they do offer them, such incentives are effective in hiring and retaining staff.”
Far and away, “failure of government entities to offer a competitive compensation package” was the most crucial hindrance to hiring and retaining CPAs. Survey respondents identified that factor more than twice as often than any other. More than half (56.3%) of respondents said that failure to offer a competitive compensation package had a large impact on governments’ ability to hire and retain CPAs. When adding in those who said it had a moderate impact, that percentage rose to nearly 84%.
This response is giving big oof, considering that, according to the survey, compensation and benefits are the two most important factors to CPAs who work in government.
According to one survey respondent, small to midsize government bodies can’t afford CPAs, since experienced accountants “can make double [the salary] doing anything else.”
Legislative inaction. If the problem is clear to those working in the trenches, where’s the disconnect? Respondents pointed to elected leaders as the problem.
When asked to rate factors impacting their ability to secure enough funding to meet their responsibilities, respondents most commonly indicated that “legislative bodies and elected officials aren’t always buying into the CPA value proposition.”
Another major impact on hiring and retaining CPAs is the technical government expertise required for the role. Nearly a quarter (23.1%) of respondents said this factor had a large impact and, when combined with those who said it had a moderate impact, that percentage rose to 62.9%. Respondents noted that managers and legislative leaders “often lack awareness and appreciation for the efforts required to comply with governmental technical accounting and auditing rules that are increasing the workload of government staff.”
Disjointed effort. As it turns out, governments’ most popular methods of hiring and retaining CPA staff weren't necessarily effective..
The three most common tactics respondents listed were hiring experienced CPAs without a government background, hiring new college graduates for entry-level positions, and mentoring.
However, the tactics rated as most effective were additional compensation for passing the CPA exam, signing bonuses or increasing pay, and mentoring. Roughly 90% of respondents who used these tactics found them effective. That’s roughly 10 percentage points higher than hiring experienced CPAs with no government background and approximately 15 percentage points higher than hiring new college grads.