Beresford also pointed out that the move to give the FASB chairman more power to set the board's agenda is a departure from current practice. Today, projects are added to, or in the rare case dropped from, the agenda via a full board vote. If the new proposal is accepted in its current form, the chairman would be given the "ultimate say on projects," said Beresford. But he expects that Herz, or any other chairman, will consult with the rest of the board before making a final decision.

Schipper, who is also formerly a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council, which is supposed to advise FASB on setting its agenda, questions whether the FAF feels the FASAC is not doing its job. "I wonder if this is why they see the need to concentrate agenda setting power?"

Schipper also wondered whether the chairman's new power to set the agenda would include the ability to remove items. "That's an interesting idea," she said. "Suppose the chairman were on the losing side of a technical vote, would he not be in the position to have a supermajority vote and say that, since the item was not going his way, he could remove the item from the agenda?" Schipper said that the FAF should also be asked whether "concentrating this power in a single individual might cause potentially highly qualified board members to consider whether they want to join the board."

Comments on the proposal to shrink the board and cede more power to the FASB chairman are due by February 10.

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