Senate committee hears SB 796 to let Board of Accountancy fund need-based scholarships

A public hearing before a Senate committee on Feb. 10 considered Senate Bill 796, a proposal to let the Oregon Board of Accountancy use money from its operating fund to pay for existing need-based scholarships for students in accredited accounting programs and to declare an emergency with an effective date of July 1, 2025.

Ellen, a committee staff member, summarized the bill: "Senate Bill 796 permits the Oregon Board of Accountancy to use money in its operating fund to fund existing need based scholarships for students in accredited accounting programs. It permits the Board to establish eligibility criteria for the program and declares an emergency, takes effect 07/01/2025." The bill was heard at a short morning session that drew testimony from the board's executive director and university accounting educators.

Martin Petioni, executive director of the Oregon Board of Accountancy, told the committee the measure makes a permanent statutory change allowing the fee-funded board to spend operating resources on scholarships but does not itself appropriate recurring funding. "What is not permanent is funding," Petioni said, explaining that a separate, one-time $1,000,000 policy option package is proposed in the board's budget (House Bill 5001) and that the scholarship line item would reset to zero each budget cycle. He said the statutory change would allow the board to request funding for the scholarship line item in future budget cycles without returning to the Legislature for new authorizing language.

Petioni described the board and the CPA community as fiscally conservative and said the scholarship program is intended to "leverage private sector resources and existing private sector programs and add[] a need based component to what's already going on in the private sector." He also told the committee that the board has been using other tools, including rule changes that increase allowable internship hours for applicants, and that a related bill, Senate Bill 797, seeks to change licensure pathways.

Logan Steele, an accounting professor at Oregon State University and a board member, testified that boosting the supply of Certified Public Accountants would "enhance consumer protection as it relates to the practice of public accounting." Steele said the profession faces capacity challenges that affect public protection, describing situations where clients lost access to CPAs because firms were understaffed, and he said scholarships help reduce financial barriers for students entering the field.

Dr. Elizabeth Ulmer, a CPA and accounting professor at Portland State University who chairs the board's Pipeline Committee, urged support for SB 796 and described student financial strain. "Approximately 50 percent of our students report experiencing food insecurity at some point during the year, and 40 percent face housing insecurity at some point in the year," Ulmer said, adding that scholarships can be decisive in allowing students to complete degrees. She offered an anecdote of a former student who said she would have dropped out without scholarship aid and later became a CPA working in internal audit.

Committee members asked about related workforce and outreach efforts. Petioni and the witnesses said universities and the board are pursuing multiple approaches, including high-school outreach, licensure pathway changes (SB 797), rule changes to expand internship credit, and scholarship support. On language access, witnesses said the Uniform CPA Examination is administered in English; Petioni noted that foreign-language courses may count toward certain education requirements and that the board is considering multilingual communications as staffing and outreach capacity grows.

Senators also asked about licensing fees. Petioni said the primary revenue source is the two-year active license renewal fee, currently set at $255 and unchanged since 2015. He said the $1,000,000 funding proposal in the agency budget was calibrated so the board would not need a fee increase this session or the next.

The hearing was informational; no committee vote on SB 796 was recorded during the session. Petioni said that if the bill is approved it would authorize the board to seek appropriations during the regular budget process; the one-time $1,000,000 appropriation referenced by witnesses is contained in the agency budget vehicle, House Bill 5001, which would be considered separately by Ways and Means.

The committee closed the public hearing and announced additional hearings and work sessions scheduled for the coming days.