January 20, 2022
Third Annual COSEA Legislative Day 2022 In the Books!
First, I want to THANK EVERYONE who made the trek to the Capitol in Denver on the Thursday morning. The turnout was AMAZING! AND better than 2020! I am extremely pleased with the response from our members.
Our wonderful, hard-working lobbyist, Heidi Morgan came through for us as well. Even with all the COVID changes, her ability to connect just about every member with their House or Senate Representative this year was a vast improvement from 2020.
We met at the First Baptist Church across the street from the Capitol, with great success. When Heidi first approached us with this COVID change of venue, we were hesitant about how many representatives would find us BEFORE they went into session that morning, but she assured us they would come over for coffee and doughnuts, and she was right! We had about 15 representatives come over to the church and introduce themselves, and they spent time with each Enrolled Agent.
I personally met with State Senator, Don Coram of Montrose, my Representative. I had as much time as I needed with him. It ended up being a very productive time for each of us. Heidi made sure there were Representatives from Committees directly relating to tax, like Shannon Bird, Chair of the House Finance Committee or Chris Hansen who serves on the Joint Budget Committee. These are the connections we need to foster.
Then, after a few too many yummy doughnuts, we sauntered across the street to the Capitol and met a few more Representatives and took a few more pictures. Jen MacMillan, our resident NAEA celebrity, (Treasurer) came with us and had some serious meetings with Representatives. We are so grateful to her for coming and engaging with us and the Reps.
Heidi’s work with COSEA is not done. She intends to write stock letters for us so we can follow up with our connections to write to our Representatives and continue with our outreach to promote and protect the EA designation. The letters will be available on the COSEA website shortly for each COSEA member and non-member. We are encouraging each member and non-member to reach out to their State Senators and House Representatives throughout the year to remind them of WHO and WHAT the Enrolled Agent IS and WHAT we DO for the Constitutes of Colorado.
Heidi also intends to watch bills coming down the hopper during the Colorado 2022 general session, so we are not left out of the conversation or if a bill has an adverse effect on Enrolled Agents we want to know immediately. She is also working hard to put us on a task force so we can assist the Representatives in forming bills. As Don Coram mentioned to me, they are merely un-professionals trying to decide on hundreds of specialized, professional bills.
After we took several wonderful pictures at the Capitol, we headed over to the Hyattplace hotel where Malcolm Marchman, a COSEA Board Director gave us the honor of his knowledge in an Ethics class that we all benefitted from. We owe him a big round of applauds for his class. Thank you very much Malcom.
We also had John Dundon, EA, former COSEA President and current COSEA board Director and Committee chair, zoom in and give us a motivational talk. Thank you so much John, for your continued work with COSEA. We owe you so much.
Sandy Weidner, Vice President of New Mexico Society of Enrolled Agents, flew in from Albuquerque to observe our Leg Day and learn our secrets to take back with her to NMSEA. We wish her and NMSEA the best of luck as they attempt to put together a Leg Day of their own. We were so happy to have her all day with us. We are truly grateful to her for sharing her ideas about membership.
I want to take a minute to thank our wonderful admin assistant, Lindie Hunt, for all her amazing hard work throughout this season of planning. We really could not have done this without her knowledge and ability to foresee problems and issues. Her knowledge of website development and overall experience in logistics made her invaluable to us. WE all owe her a standing round of applause. Last week was her last week and we will miss her dearly. Mostly because now the board will now need to pick up the duties she was doing for the last few months. If there are any members that would like to volunteer their time to assist the board, please feel free to email me directly….president@cosea.org. We could definitely use the help.
We took pictures that you can browse through if you were not able to make this year, we hope to see you next year.
Legislative Day is THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF THE YEAR for COSEA, IMHO. This year was a complete success and I owe to all of you.
I also want to remind each member to take a moment to enter the drawing for a FREE registration and travel to the Las Vegas Summer NAEA CE event 2022. This is for COSEA members only, so sign up if you are still not a COSEA member! We have a $25 coupon as well COSEA25! NOW IS THE TIME TO JOIN COSEA!
Let’s stay connected! I would love to hear how COSEA can improve and assist you as you move through your season.
Thank you,
Penny Fisher, EA, NTPI Fellow
President Colorado Society of Enrolled Agents
