You'll have more missed meetings. But as for SOX or privacy compliance, who cares? I don't see any broad implications.

Some people think it's an invasion of privacy and some are mortified there's a financial penalty. From a town perspective, we find them helpful.

I thought they would have come with some recommendations that actually reduce the burden -- maybe, you'll only have to, say, audit a third of the controls in any given year. Or maybe they would have come with some clarity on what are effective controls, a problem for all-sized companies.

One of them, there's about 20, will make it through before the 2006 elections.

Projects that were not aligned with compliance and corporate governance were delayed or cancelled, and SOX efforts inhibited the purchase of large amounts of software related to building new technologies and deploying new projects. However, by the second half of 2005, increased interest in IT solutions to ease the burden of compliance has begun to drive new spending.

There's been a lot of ups and downs and a lot of meetings. When you consider this has been an all-volunteer effort, it's a good feeling to know we've met this milestone. Owning the building is a big feather in our cap. But it's still an uphill battle.