Kurt K. Kawafuchi of Honolulu and Robert B. Scott of Carrollton, Texas, received the AICPA’s 2008 Outstanding CPA in Government Award.

The award, presented by AICPA Chairman Randy Fletchall at the Institute’s spring Council meeting in Florida, recognizes full-time college accounting educators for excellence in teaching and for national prominence in the profession.

Kawafuchi received the state government award. Scott received the local government award.

The awards were presented at the AICPA’s 25th Annual National Governmental Accounting and Auditing Update Conference in Washington, D.C.

Kawafuchi, director of the Hawaii Department of Taxation, streamlined the department’s operations by implementing one–stop taxpayer support, faster refunds, “plain English” correspondence, automated 24/7 phone support, improved implementation of legislative changes, and audit selection tools. These programs and others have helped generate a record $304 million in collections over a previous record of $113 million.

Scott is Carrollton’s CFO and assistant city manager. He is credited as a champion of change for the Texas Municipal Retirement system, which covers state employees in more than 800 cities. He has assisted Texas governments in implementing GASB’s new standards on other post-employment benefits by coordinating a share actuarial services contract through the local Council of Governments, allowing governments of all sizes to access high-quality actuarial services for reasonable price.

Martha Collins Scarberry, an accounting teacher at Madison Southern High School in Berea, Ky., received the AICPA’s 2008 Special Recognition Award.

The award, given to an individual who has performed or contributed significantly to the success of a particular project or initiative that benefits the profession, was presented at Interchange 2008, a professional staff development conference coordinated by the AICPA and the CPA/Society Executives Association.

Collins Scarberry, a member of the Kentucky Accounting Foundation’s Curriculum Task Force, wrote Accounting and Finance Foundations I and helped develop the curriculum guide Accounting and Finance Foundations II. Those texts evolved into new accounting courses that replaced Kentucky’s original 1930s-era curriculum. As a result, the Kentucky State Board of Accountancy and the Kentucky Society of CPAs secured $125,000 of surplus state board funds to earmark for teacher training in 200 of the state’s schools.

The AICPA announced the winners of the 2007 Elijah Watt Sells Awards, presented annually to the 10 candidates earning the highest cumulative scores on the four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination. In 2007 more than 76,000 candidates took the exam. The winners, in alphabetical order followed by their state board affiliation, and the school from which they graduated, are:

Steven J. Alden (Mass.), University of Massachusetts-Amherst
John G. Berger Jr. (Ill.), University of Notre Dame
Jason J. Brancazio (Calif.), Princeton University
Bryan E. Dean (Wash.), University of Washington
John Briscoe Escosa III (Ky.), Bellarmine University
Rapheal Joseph Hamilton (Kan.), Emporia State University and Syracuse University
Wenxin Li (N.H.), Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China
Barri Alexandra Litt (S.C.), University of Florida-Gainesville
Walker Fleming Saik (N.C.), Davidson College
Bryce A. Schonberger (Colo.), University of Colorado-Boulder

The award honors Elijah Watt Sells, one of the country’s first CPAs and a leader in advancing professional education.

The Institute awarded research grants for 2008–2009 to accounting and management professors Barry Mishra and Erik Rolland of the A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California–Riverside; and Shannon W. Anderson of Rice University and Anne M. Lillis of the University of Melbourne, Australia.

The awards were granted in collaboration with the Management Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association.

Also, Kristy Towry, assistant professor of managerial accounting and finance at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, received the Best Early Career Researcher Award from the AICPA.

The award was co-sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in the U.K. and the Society of Management Accountants (CMA Canada) and granted in collaboration with the Management Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association. The $2,000 grant is given to a researcher with the best overall body of research in management accounting, completed within the first five years of joining a faculty.

Mishra and Rolland will study “A Strategic Framework for Internal Control Risk Identification and Analysis.” They propose to develop a strategic risk analysis framework that better integrates people, processes and technology in a company’s total internal control risk profile.

Anderson and Lillis will study “The Impact of Firm Strategy and Culture on Cost Restructuring.” They will extend their current research in Australia to AICPA members to gain data on cost management and restructuring decisions.

Towry’s research on the use of accounting information for managerial decision making, with a special focus on managerial control systems and financial incentives, has been in several publications. Her research also examines control systems in a teamwork setting.