Dear LAMAAA members & colleagues,
Thank you for the many expressions of support we received from you,
both in person and via email. Please forgive me for using this format
to thank you on behalf of the LAMAAA board for your kindnesses. We
express our joint commitment to honor the trust placed in us by you and
by our employer. I invite you to search out the LAMAAA bylaws at
www.LAMAAA.org and to measure our performance according to the
Objectives and By-Laws found there.
We, the members of the LAMAAA board, are anxious to work together on
your behalf to bring LAMAAA members closer together in the professional
performance of our duties as accounting and financial professionals with
the City of Los Angeles. We welcome the suggestions and enthusiastic
support you volunteer, just as you have done over so many years. We
still need your support and volunteer spirit if we are to succeed.
One important area we need to address as an organization is the
development of vision and mission statements that align with our values,
goals, and objectives. I'm looking for a format to invite your input on
this subject that will further focus our participation as LAMAAA
members.
As President, I look forward to the increased opportunity to become
better acquainted with each of you. I just purchased a digital camera
this week with the hope of keeping a picture of many of you close at
hand. I would say all, but knowing that we number in the hundreds,
reality takes over. I hope we can find a way to enhance our LAMAAA web
site so each of you can there post your picture and a few details of
your work (for members only!).
If any of you has a particular interest in helping LAMAAA further
develop the LAMAAA web site, please let me know. Art Faelnar has done
such a good job over the past few years to enhance communication amongst
the LAMAAA community. Thank you Art, and thanks to your family for
allowing you the extra time that you contributed on behalf of LAMAAA.
Only other software professionals could know the extensive time
commitment required to keep such a web site current and pertinent in our
work.
If you have recently visited the LAMAAA web site you haven't seen any
recent changes, but I invite you to visit www.lamaaa.org/paypal/ to
witness a recent innovation that we are working to bring to you (I paid
my LAMAAA dues online this week using this web site). You may have
heard of PayPal without knowing exactly how, whether or why you should
use such a service. PayPal is simply a way to pay for online purchases
without releasing credit or banking information to an online vendor.
This format would give those of our members who choose to use it a
simpler way to pay their dues, while at the same time making it
practical to offer LAMAAA personalized items to you via our web site (in
accordance with applicable rules and regulations).
Each of us is a valued member of the City family and each brings a long
history of performance as a professional. I am very happy to be
associated with you. In my remarks at the induction luncheon a couple
of weeks ago, I touched on the subject of integrity and maintaining our
tradition of high standards of personal ethics. Let me be the first to
say that in spite of my high regard for this subject, I can always
improve. Each of us can improve and each of us can help our colleagues
to value taking the high road. It's the simple things that make all the
difference.
One of the members of the academic community who inspires me in that
regard is Dr. William W. Holder, Professor in the School of Accounting
at USC. Many of you attended Dr. Holder's presentation to our
association last January in the DWP auditorium. I invite you to
carefully consider the attached testimony he gave before a congressional
committee while failures spotlighted such an unusual number of the most
trusted accounting professionals. Dr. Holder's testimony challenges
each of us to think more creatively as we fulfill our responsibilities
as City employees.
On behalf of the entire LAMAAA board, thank you.
Sincerely,
Will Newman
President
LAMAAA
No article/s from any pages
of this website may be reproduced without prior permission
from
The Los Angeles Municipal Accountants and Auditors
Association
PO Box 53043 Los Angeles CA 90053
Copyright © 2006
