THE VALUE OF ETHICS BRINGING INTENTION INTO IDENTIFY THE KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM ETHICS TRAINING

BY DEBBIE DAVIS, CPA

One of the benefits of having a CPA license is that we get to participate in professional development. Plus, we get to be intentional about what we learn! One option for professional development each year is the State and Local Government Conference, which is designed to provide opportunities to increase your knowledge in a variety of technical areas (e.g., GASBs and standards), as well as with required topics (e.g., Utah Rules and Ethics). We hope you’ll join us on May 12 for the conference. We would also love to have you join the planning committee — yes, you can help determine the topics of the conference, suggest speakers, and even write this article next year!

As mentioned, one of the topics that will be covered in the conference this year is ethics. Since it is a requirement in the CPA Licensing Act (R156-26a-303b), continuing education on ethics is not going anywhere; but what may be a question is, what benefit are you deriving from the required ethics training? Can you more readily identify and resolve ethical dilemmas or situations? How do you define ethics? Is it something that hovers outside of, but is applied to, critical tasks and functions or is it embedded in how you complete critical tasks and functions?

A few years ago, I did a deep-dive training to learn more about strategic planning. One of the outcomes from the training was an intentional effort by my team to determine our core values. Core values are who you are, what is important to you, and things you will stick to no matter what. So, core values exist, whether you intentionally identify them or not. If they exist anyway, what is the benefit to intentionally identifying your core values?

For an individual, the answer may be that you will identify more readily where you fit — and where you do not; you will also be more confident in making decisions.

For a team, the answer is shared — and transparent — vision, purpose, and expectations. To answer one of the questions above, intentional identification can embed the core values (i.e., the ethics) in your critical tasks and functions because they are within each team member.

My team determined that our core values are efficiency, excellence, professionalism, life balance, and integrity; each value is defined so there is no question about what they mean. These core values are the foundation of our strategic plan and are incorporated into our department and individual performance plans. Our core values have impacted everything we do including our recruiting, auditing, policies and procedures, data collection, even how we answer the phone and respond to emails. We reinforce our core values by doing core value recognitions at our monthly staff meetings.

Recently, I was asked about how to assess and benchmark

State & Local Government Conference

Date: Friday, May 12

Time: 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Location: Sheraton Hotel, 150 W. 500 South

CPE: 8 hours

Cost: $370; $270 for members

State & Local Government Conference Agenda

General Session

8:05 – 9:05

9:05 – 9:20

9:20 – 10:20 customer service. With words like assess and benchmark, my mind immediately went to performance measures and from there to strategic planning. I could not think of a specific performance measure we use for customer service; but I realized that customer service is a natural outcome of our core values. As we strive to be professional, excellent and efficient, our customer service is as well; and having life balance and integrity helps us to rebound and improve if we fall short.

It was a great exercise for me to connect the dots between ethics, core values, and customer service. As you participate in ethics education this year, consider the question: What benefit am I deriving from the ethics training that is required? Don’t leave it to chance; intentionally identify your core values and confidently move forward. n

Debbie Davis, CPA, is the chief audit executive for the Utah State Board of Education and has worked in government auditing at the state level for 22 years. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor’s and master’s in accounting (audit emphasis). Debbie has participated with the UACPA State and Local Government Conference Committee since 2014, and in 2021 was recognized as the UACPA Outstanding CPA in Non-Profit and Government.

10:20 – 10:35

10:35 – 11:35

Lunch

12:00 – 12:30

Breakout Sessions

12:35 – 1:35

Utah Laws & Rules

Susan Speirs, CPA - UACPA

Networking Break

GASB 87 – Lessons Learned

Paul Skeen, CPA – Eide Bailly and Shaun Anderson, CPA –Salt Lake City Department of Airports

Networking Break

Ethics

Gregory Kyte, CPA

UACPA Update

Overview of Yellow, Red & Green Books

Debbie Davis, CPA – Utah State

Office of Education

Audit Deficiencies

Michele Levine – Government

Finance Officers Association

New SAS’s

Andrew Driggs, CPA –Utah Office of the State Auditor

1:35 – 1:45

General Session

1:45 – 3:00

Networking Break

GASB Update

Michele Levine – Government

Finance Officers Association

3:00 – 3:10

3:10 – 4:10

Networking break

Economic Update

Robert Spendlove – Zions Bank