Texas CPA Board to Reopen Its Rules on Advertising, Subpoenas and Criminal Convictions

The board that licenses Texas accountants will reopen nine of its own rules Nov. 5, among them what a CPA may claim in an advertisement, what a firm may call itself, when the board may issue a subpoena, and which criminal convictions can cost someone a license.

The nine come up from the board’s rules committee, which meets the day before, and the board posted the proposed texts ahead of the meeting. Four sit in the conduct code: definitions, the rule protecting what clients tell their accountants, advertising, and firm names. Five are enforcement procedure: subpoenas, the list of crimes that may subject a licensee or certificate holder to discipline, informal conferences, administrative hearings, and the exceptions and replies parties file after an administrative judge proposes a decision. The notice itself does not say what any of them would change.

Underneath that sits the board’s routine machinery: 490 administrative disciplinary actions, in six numbered blocks. Not one involves an allegation about audit work. Judging by how the board has handled identically structured blocks in the past, roughly 194 are licensees who did not pay fees across three consecutive periods, about 270 fell short on required training, and about 26 did not return a renewal notice. In past rounds staff recommended revoking the certificate without prejudice in the first and third groups — the license comes back when the licensee complies — and, in the second, a three-year suspension or suspension until the licensee complies, whichever comes first, plus $100 for each year out of compliance. That mapping is read from precedent, not from this agenda, which gives only case numbers; minutes for the board’s last two meetings have not been posted.

The contested work is far smaller: four agreed settlements and eight dismissals for voluntary compliance, carried over from enforcement committee meetings in June and August. Two rule amendments are listed for adoption, on the accounting courses that qualify a candidate to sit for the CPA exam and on applications filed under earlier versions of the law. The first of those was adopted once already, effective Oct. 7, as a one-line cross-reference fix, so what remains to adopt could not be determined from the notice.

The rest is housekeeping with money in it: the board’s financial statements, a procurement to replace its aging licensing system, and its grant to the state CPA society for a program that helps accountants with substance abuse and mental health problems, which a committee has recommended continuing and increasing. The board does all of this a member short. One of its fifteen seats has been empty since 2025.

Meeting at a glance

Board members

• Jeannette P. Smith — presiding officer; Mission; partner, Carr, Riggs & Ingram.
• Susan M. Warren — assistant presiding officer; Georgetown; partner, KPMG.
• Olivia Espinoza-Riley — treasurer; Addison; accounting supervisor, CBRE.
• Renee D. Foshee — secretary; San Marcos; assistant professor, Angelo State University.
• Susan I. Adams — Colleyville; shareholder, Huselton Morgan & Maultsby.
• Christopher “Grant” Coates — Fort Worth; chief executive, The Miles Foundation.
• Kimberly D. Crawford — Arlington; partner, Sutton Frost Cary.
• Ray R. Garcia — Houston; longtime partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• Jill A. Holup — Austin; operating and finance chief, CenterGate Capital.
• Sherri B. Merket — Midland; executive assistant, Hillander School.
• Thomas M. Neuhoff — Tyler; chief financial officer, Herd Family Office.
• Kenneth E. Omoruyi — Sugar Land; managing partner, CKO CPAs and Advisors.
• James M. Trippon — Houston; president, JM Trippon & Company.
• Sheila M. Vallés-Pankratz — Mission; executive vice president, Hollis Rutledge and Associates.

Roster from the board’s membership page, checked October 29, cross-checked against the governor’s appointment releases; no appointment to this board has been announced in 2026. Fourteen of fifteen seats are filled. The page does not label seats or declare a vacancy; because the statute requires ten CPA and five public members and the page shows ten CPAs, the Dispatch takes the empty seat to be a public one. The seat was last held by Jamie D. Grant of Arlington, who is off the roster from July 2025 onward; the minutes give no reason and no replacement has been announced. Smith is presiding officer and Warren assistant presiding officer and rules committee chair. Staff contact: J. Randel Hill, general counsel, (512) 305-7866.