Juneau, Alaska — The Alaska Senate Labor and Commerce Committee on May 16 reported House Bill 121 from committee with individual recommendations after discussing changes intended to expand the certified public accountant workforce and update practice-privilege rules.

House Bill 121 would reduce the education requirement for CPA candidates from 50 to 20 credit hours if the candidate also has two years of relevant accounting experience, and would update practice-privilege provisions to allow certain out-of-state CPAs to practice in Alaska without obtaining a separate Alaska license. "House Bill 121 modernizes Alaska's CPA licensure, process to help address the state's accounting shortage and align with national standards," Amanda Endemo, staff to Representative Calvin Schrage, told the committee.

The committee also considered language from Senate Bill 99 that would change professional-conservator requirements. Noah Klein, associate counsel for the Alaska court system, said the amendment would remove the current statutory requirement that a private professional conservator be certified as a guardian if the private professional conservator is a CPA. Klein said those CPAs would still have to complete the current required conservator training. "To be clear, the court system is neutral on both HB 121 and SB 99. We don't have a position on this," Klein said.

Committee members questioned the scope of guardianship and conservatorship training. Klein explained the distinction: guardians exercise broader authority over a ward's personal decisions, including housing and benefits, while conservators are limited to financial affairs. He said the current guardian certification is a short test of roughly 20–30 questions that covers guardianship and conservatorship topics; under the proposal, CPAs acting as private professional conservators would not be required to take that guardian certification test but would have to complete the required training for conservators.

Senator members discussed moving the State Affairs Committee version (which included the conservatorship provisions) forward; ultimately the committee reported HB 121, version "34-LS0382\g," from committee "with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note," with no objection recorded. The motion was made on the record and no committee member objected.

No public testimony was offered during the hearing on HB 121. The committee did not take action on any additional amendments during the meeting; the bill was reported for further consideration by the full Senate.