DATA DRAFT

A DISASTER IN VIRGINIA:

How prepared are we?

Virginia is at a higher risk for declaring a

disaster than many other states, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Since 1953, Virginia has declared 47 MAJOR DISASTERS; the national average is 42. So how does the Commonwealth stack up on national preparedness rankings?

>> 7 OUT OF 10: That’s the ranking Virginia received from the

Trust for America’s Health on its 2012 report on bioterrorism and public health preparedness. Virginia was in the TOP 15 of most prepared states.

>> 7.9 OUT OF 10: The National Health Security Preparedness

Index gave Virginia this score on preparedness for health threats and emergencies, landing it in the NO. 3 spot among all states.

The Commonwealth is also one of 31 states to receive full accreditation by the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP), which has rigorous national standards in 15 areas like planning and procedures, resource management, training and more.

Find out more about Virginia’s disaster preparedness efforts in the “Public Safety” section of the Virginia performs website at vaperforms.virginia.gov. n

>> BY THE NUMBERS

28

The average wait time in minutes for callers to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service during tax season 2015, according to WalletHub. n

Feeling the strain of college loans

When it comes to paying for college, more than half of Americans with loans regret their decisions. According to a survey from the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), 68 PERCENT of Americans with college loans or who have children with loans regret it; that’s an eight-point increase from the 2013 survey.

Those regrets don’t necessarily mean college was a bad idea: 68 PERCENT of adults with degrees said, if given the chance to make their decisions over, they would still have gone to college to get more lucrative jobs. However, 84 PERCENT would make at least one different choice regarding their educations, such as choosing a less expensive college (54 PERCENT), going to a trade school (43 PERCENT) or delayed enrollment to build savings (27 PERCENT).

This is a big deal, considering the amount of student loan debt in the United States. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says that the total amount of loan debt doubled from 2006 to 2012. n

THE OTHER SIDE OF SOX

Companies that are transparent about their weaknesses in Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) may actually be hurting themselves.

A new study published in The Accounting Review, the journal of the American Accounting Association, discovered that there is a higher likelihood that companies that are open about their internal control issues will face penalties — which is the opposite of the law’s intent. The study found that the transparent companies faced the following repercussions:

>> Enforcement actions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange

Commission (6 percent more likely)

>> Class-action lawsuits (5 to 10 percent)

>> Top management turnover (15 to 26 percent)

>> Auditor turnover (6 to 9 percent)

Read more in the May issue of The Accounting Review at aaajournals.org. n