Happy Birthday, SarbOx!

Happy Birthday, SarbOx!

Ah, compliance. To think that four years ago, we hardly knew ye, right?

Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on July 30, 2002 in response to all those nasty corporate accounting scandals (read: Enron, and also Enron) with the hope of regaining the public's trust in reporting practices. The law required affected businesses to comply by the end of their fiscal years after July 15, 2006 (an extension of the original deadline of July 15, 2005). U.S. companies now have anywhere from a few weeks to nearly a year to meet the requirements or face all sorts of unsavory consequences. Public U.S. companies were required to be compliant in November 2004.

So, how has it gone? Companies long lamented the huge costs they've been forced to absorb to become SarbOx-compliant, and rightfully so. Gartner Research reported in December 2005 that compliance laws have driven up IT budgets significantly, expecting a 10-15 percent increase in IT budgets to meet with regulatory measurements in 2006, up from 5 percent in 2004.

But, larger-than-ever IT budgets aren't bad for everyone. In fact, the last four years have seen an explosion in the number of employment opportunities for everyone from IT auditors to compliance programmers. Dice.com reports that as of June 30, there were 1,027 job postings requesting SarbOx experience. With entry-level IT auditors making around $65K and corporate compliance executives raking in nearly $200K, this fourth anniversary is something for IT pros to celebrate, and I'd suggest you start with some fruit or flowers.

posted on Monday, July 31, 2006 11:42 PM by Deb Rothberg