Not Your Traditional Father/Son CPA
When Matthew B. Wielkotz, a CPA and a licensed public school accountant, first joined his father’s accounting and auditing firm in Pompton Lakes and Newton in 2012, he saw a few things he wanted to change. That’s only natural given that Matthew is part of the new breed of CPAs entering the workforce today. Fast forward a few years later, Wielkotz & Company did undergo some changes, but it also stayed the same in areas too — for good reason.
Matthew had planned to revise and revamp the “old way of doing things,” when he came to the registered municipal accounting (RMA) firm from PwC. But not everything needed to be modernized. Both Matthew and his father, Steven D. Wielkotz, CPA, a registered municipal accountant and licensed public school accountant, knew the value of keeping good client relationships intact — the kind that have been fostered since his father joined the firm from KPMG in 1995. Despite a few name changes, the firm has maintained its focus on governmental accounting and auditing — something both Matthew and his dad are proud of. “The client-relations side of governmental accounting is very exciting. It’s a very rewarding industry. It’s tough to find an industry that is more openly relatable to people than paying taxes,” he explains.
Matthew did leverage technology and bring more efficiency to operations and client organization. Having acquired accounting experience in real estate at PwC, Matthew also added redevelopment services to the slate of offerings the firm now provides along with its traditional specialty of serving municipalities and schools. His experience helps in providing New Jersey’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program (PILOT) agreements, which incentivize developers to build in underdeveloped areas and not have to pay traditional real estate taxes. “There’s a lot of really exciting things going on with development, such as affordable housing, open space park solutions, etc. The next 20 years of development in New Jersey is going to be fascinating,” says Matthew, who is also a part-time CFO for the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency.
Old and New
After they bought out some partners on the verge of retirement, which paved the way for a corporate restructuring, the firm rebranded as Wielkotz & Company, LLC. To this day, Wielkotz is a perfect mix of old and new, which provides the best of both worlds to its clients. To Matthew, leveraging technology is key to running a successful accounting and auditing practice. But as Steven reminds, though modernizing has its advantages, it’s equally important to maintain the level of hands-on auditing service that clients, such as Bergen County, Passaic County and almost one hundred other local governments, municipalities and school districts have come to expect from them.
This kind of accounting and auditing leads both father and son — and now another son, Daniel, has entered the family business — to meet a variety of people from the polished politician to the exterminator or contractor who may not be an expert in municipal finance but has a legislative position in town government. “We help local politicians. They run on certain specific goals and we help them figure out the financial ways to achieve them,” explains Matthew. Assisting with getting a local government’s bond rating up and helping them communicate with the ratings agencies has a direct correlation to what they pay to borrow money and saves taxpayers money on an overall basis, adds Steven. “The ability to stabilize taxes and their budget and help them stay structurally balanced provides personal satisfaction to us since you are helping them accomplish their goals.”
This kind of niche accounting is indeed a two-way street. “They really lean on us a lot more than what I saw at the larger accounting firms,” explains Matthew. But that’s not a complaint. As Steven notes, some of his clients of more than 20 years are some of his closest friends. And sons Matthew and Daniel have grown up calling at least one mentor, a former county auditor himself, “uncle.”