Robbin R Weiner of Montville 'felt it wasn't right' that only full-time accountants were eligible for certification. She forced a change in state regulations with the aid of her employer, Martin Davidoff of E. Martin Davidoff & Associates CPA firm in South Brunswick. Photo by: Noah Addis, Daily Record Accountant mom wins battle for benefit denied part-timers By Carole Thompson Daily Record
MONTVILLE TWP.- Robbin R. Weiner finally became a certified public accountant this month after her boss challenged the rules that prevented many like Weiner - a mother of two who could only work part-time - from earning the distinction reserved for full-time workers.
"I was thrilled. It's like finishing college," said Weiner, 35, whose employer, Martin Davidoff, with the help of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants, persuaded the state to allow part-time accountants to become certified.
"Basically, what started out as Robbin coming to me with a problem resulted in change," said Davidoff, owner of the E. Martin Davidoff & Associates CPA firm in South Brunswick, Middlesex County.
A college professor
Weiner, who lives in Montville, is an adjunct professor of accounting at what is now Kean University in Union and still works part-time for Davidoff in South Brunswick. Her husband, Corey, is a radiologist at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston.
In 1992, when she graduated from what was then Kean College, her children, Andrew, 12, and Ariel, 10, were then only 7 and 5, so she worked for Davidoff part-time, she said.
Weiner, who graduated with highest honors and a 4.0 grade average, took and passed the state CPA examination when it was given in May 1993, and said she believed she need only fulfill a work experience requirement of two years at a public accounting firm to be certified by the New Jersey State Board of Accountancy.
Didn't count
What she didn't realize was that her part-time experience would not go toward satisfying the work requirement, since only full-time work was recognized by the state, she said.
"I felt it wasn't right," she said. "So I went and talked to Marty about it and he said it wasn't fair."
Faced with losing a member of his staff he considered outstanding, Davidoff said he decided to try to change the rules. "I'm an advocate," he said "I go out and I get things done."
At the time, Davidoff was a member of the executive committee of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants, a 100-year-old association based in Roseland, one of the oldest CPA societies in the United States, with 14,000 members. He proposed that the organization appoint a task force to determine whether the rules should be changed, and about 18 months later the task force recommended change to the state Board of Accountancy, Davidoff said.
In 1995, after the urging of the CPA Society, the state board changed the rules to allow either two years of full-time experience in accounting or four years part-time experience, said Genene Wiggins, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the state Board of Accountancy.
Kenneth W. Moore, president of the society, said the change was necessary because it more accurately reflects the changing working conditions of today's society.
"More and more women are working, there's more flex time, and people are working at different times of the day and night," he said. "The result is that the profession is made up of different people now. Twenty-five years ago it was male-dominated. Now 50 percent of graduates (earning bachelors degrees in accounting) are women."
On Oct. 1, Weiner finally received her certification, having completed four years of part-time work in accounting.