Accountability has been the hallmark of Joe DioGuardi’s distinguished career in accounting, public service, advocacy, education, and corporate governance. The son of immigrants, whose industriousness and entrepreneurial spirit enabled them to build a better future, Joe is no stranger to hard work or unflagging persistence. He has tackled serious problems in his community, the business arena, and Congress. He obtains solutions, frequently overcoming obstacles by thinking ahead of the issue at hand.
As a Certified Public Accountant, Joe has spent his professional life promoting sound accounting principles and practices in government, and has demonstrated his dedication to professional integrity and personal service in accounting. He has consistently exemplified vision, leadership, and commitment to the core principles of public service, both locally and nationally.
Joe is a man of action, not just words. From his early years behind the cash register at the family’s food market in the Bronx to his career as a CPA, member of Congress, and citizen activist, Joe has lived the American dream. His professional accomplishments include:
- Sponsoring ground-breaking Congressional legislation to ensure proper oversight of government budgeting, accounting, and reporting
- Authoring a book, Unaccountable Congress: It Doesn’t Add Up, which reveals and explains accounting and fiscal irresponsibility in Congress
- Giving key testimony to the Federal Accounting Standards and Advisory Board (FASAB)
- Establishing and leading a non-profit foundation, Truth In Government, to educate citizens about the sustainability of the U.S. economy
- Co-founding “Rethinking Westchester County Government” to improve the fiscal sustainability of Westchester County government and reduce taxes (highest in the nation)
- Authoring more than 50 articles on fiscal responsibility, financial accountability, and transparency
- Delivering more than 100 speeches to professional, civic and business organizations
- With wife Shirley Cloyes, fighting as a human rights activist and volunteer lobbyist for U.S. recognition of Kosova as an independent state
Joe’s professional and civic life demonstrates his results orientation and a progression of accomplishments. Arthur Andersen & Co., where Joe worked as an accountant from 1962-1984, assigned him firm-wide responsibility for non-profit organizations, public sector taxation and pensions, and the tax economics of charitable giving. He achieved partner status at age 31.
The first practicing CPA elected to Congress, Joe spent two terms in the House of Representatives (1985-1989). He set out to improve Congressional fiscal responsibility and financial accountability, authoring the landmark Chief Financial Officer and Federal Financial Reform Act (“the CFO Act”), which mandated the appointment of a CFO to each major U.S. department and agency. Joe has continued public service on this issue, testifying before FASAB and the Association of Government Accountants as recently as last year.
Joe built bipartisan support for his legislative agenda and continued his activism even after leaving the House. Eschewing the expected post-Congressional career of lobbying, he resumed his professional life as a financial consultant and corporate director, and also became an active citizen and volunteer. He founded Truth In Government, which informs citizens about grossly inadequate federal budgeting, spending, and financial reporting practices. The non-profit also warns about the dangers of the nation’s increased reliance on foreign countries to purchase its bonds, which adds substantially to the national debt. Joe began traveling the country and employing online methods to disseminate his message.
Joe’s message has reached millions through his website (www.truthingovernment.org), and through videos on the need for fiscal and accounting reform that are available on YouTube and other Internet sites. He contributes articles to national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The Washington Post, and The National Law Journal.
- Joe was also instrumental in the awarding of nine medals of honor to African Americans who served in World Wars I and II. (Prior to Joe’s aggressive intervention, not one African American war hero from either World War had received our nation’s highest award, even though 1,550,000 had served.)
- Joe serves on the board of the Phoenix House, a nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, operating in nine states.
- He co-founded Rethinking Westchester Government in 2009 to address the need to downsize County government and reduce its extremely high tax burden.
- Joe founded and co-chaired the Congressional Long Island Sound and Hudson River Caucuses, which secured increases in federal support to stop pollution in those bodies of water.
- He co-founded with Congressman Jerrold Nadler and Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long the New York Task Force for Port, Rail, and Industrial Development, which restored lost jobs to New York’s manufacturing and transportation industries and preserved a portion of the Port of New York on the New York side of the harbor in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
- In 1989, he was the keynote speaker at the Association for Government Accountants’ conference in N
ew York. - In 1993, he chaired an AGA Task Force on Truth in Government Accounting and Budgeting.
- In August 1994, as a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the American Accounting Association, Joe persuaded professors of accounting to play an active role in reforming federal budgeting and financial management.
- In May 1996, he returned to Washington as a keynote speaker on federal financial management reforms before the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA).
- In February 2009, he addressed the FASAB on Reporting Comprehensive Long-Term Fiscal Projections for the U. S. Government and Accounting for Social Insurance.
- In June 2009, Joe addressed the AGA conference in New Orleans on the topic of Intergovernmental Financial Dependency by State and Local Governments