Friday Footnotes: EY Delays Start Dates Again; Diving Deep on a Deloitte Contract; When Associates Go Berserk | 5.16.25

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Deep Dive

The Firm Running Georgia’s Struggling Medicaid Experiment Was Also Paid Millions to Sell It to the Public [ProPublica]
When the state of Georgia handed Deloitte Consulting a $10.7 million marketing contract last July to promote the nation’s only Medicaid work requirement program, the initiative was in need of serious PR. At the time, a year after the program’s rollout, less than 2% of those eligible for Georgia Pathways to Coverage had enrolled, well short of state targets. To get the word out, the state turned again to the firm that it had relied on to build and manage the program. About 60% of the marketing contract went toward creating and placing ads about Pathways on television and radio, including during NFL games and morning talk shows.

Research

2025 Accounting MOVE Project Survey Launches with Expanded Focus on Belonging and Career Equity [EIN Newswire]
The 2025 Accounting MOVE Project, the accounting profession’s only annual benchmarking research focused on the advancement of women and diverse talent, has officially launched its survey and is now open for participation. This year’s research, sponsored by the Center for Accounting Transformation, CPA Trendlines, Moss Adams, and the Accounting & Financial Women’s Alliance, reflects a pivotal shift in how inclusion is measured—prioritizing workplace belonging and measurable career equity outcomes, regardless of whether firms use the term “DEI.”

Firm Watch

EisnerAmper, Wipfli said to seek new PE investors; Companies for sale activity picking up [PE Hub]
Sources have told PE Hub the two firms are “hoping to attract new PE investments.”

Armanino Expands into Utah Market With Addition of Cooper Savas LLC, a Leading Salt Lake City Public Accounting Firm [Business Wire]
Armanino is pleased to announce that the team from Cooper Savas LLC, a full-service public accounting firm based in Salt Lake City, Utah, has joined the firm. The latest deal marks Armanino’s first entry into the Utah market, further expanding its national footprint and enhancing its ability to serve clients across the country.

Consulting

EY delays start dates for consulting recruits for third year in a row [Financial Times]
EY has delayed start dates for graduates hired by its US strategy and deal advisory business for the third year in a row, as the Big Four firm grapples with what it called “uncertain and evolving market conditions”. Undergraduate and speciality master’s students who were due to join EY Parthenon after graduation in the next few months have been told they would now be needed “no sooner than March 2026”.

Trump’s tariffs have been good for consulting firms [Business Insider]
While another of Trump’s efforts, DOGE, has hurt the consulting industry, the tariffs, aimed at narrowing the $1.2 trillion trade deficit in goods the US imported in 2024, have so far spared the services sector, leaving consultancies largely untouched.

Talent

PwC cut 1,500 jobs—and it shows the ‘mini-boom’ in accounting is ending [Fortune]
The largest US accounting firms saw revenues soar post-pandemic. In 2022, the top 100 firms’ combined revenue jumped 18.55%, according to Accounting Today. In 2023, they experienced slower but still-impressive revenue growth of 12.88%. PwC was no exception. Its revenue climbed 15.7% in 2023, and a further 9.74% in 2024. It went on a hiring spree over that same period, growing its US workforce from around 56,000 in 2022 to nearly 77,000 in 2025. But the mini-boom appears to have ended, for PwC and for large accounting firms in aggregate. Last year the top 100 firms had an anemic growth rate of 4.89%, what Accounting Today called “one of the weakest performances of the century.”

Search firm to attempt world record at Target Center to boost CPA recruiting [Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal]
A St. Louis Park company is attempting to break a quirky Guinness World Record, but the motivation behind their unusual feat stems from a serious issue affecting businesses across the country.

Tax

Ex-EY Partner Banned for Tax Evasion [Mirage]
A former EY partner, Mr Peter Mark White, from Sydney, has had their tax agent registration terminated for misconduct and has been banned for 5 years from seeking registration with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB). The TPB Chair, Peter de Cure AM, said ‘There is no future for tax agents associated with tax avoidance or evasion. Mr White’s misconduct harmed his clients, his firm, the tax profession and the tax system, and requires the maximum penalty of deregistration and exclusion for 5 years.’

Trump’s ‘beautiful’ bill spans 1,116 pages. Here’s what’s inside it [AP]
House Republicans are advancing President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks, spending cuts and beefed-up border security as Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to pass the package over unified Democratic opposition by Memorial Day. House committees have labored on the legislation, which runs a whopping 1,116 pages and is titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a nod to Trump himself.

$40,000 SALT offer discussed with megabill holdouts [POLITICO]
The SALT cap increase is one of the biggest hangups in the bill, which is filled with President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities. A band of SALT Republicans are publicly pushing for the cap increase to hit $62,000 for individuals and double for joint filers; conservatives generally oppose lifting the existing $10,000 cap, which generally hits high-tax coastal states rich in Democratic votes.

Rise of the Robots