Dodd-Frank Costing $417 Million This Year, According To New GAO Report Hot

The Government Accountability Office polled 11 regulatory bodies and found that while most are staffing up to deal with their new Dodd-Frank responsibilities, the specifics are a little surprising.

The SEC, which advisors work with most closely, hired only 14 people for Dodd-Frank functions this year and expects to bring on another 352 next year -- always provided funding emerges, of course.

But the Federal Reserve hired 397 people and the commodities and banking regulators at the CFTC and OCC took on 121 and 133 people, respectively.

Given all the suspicions out there that Dodd-Frank is going to force the advisory industry to spend a lot and hire a lot of compliance people, it will be interesting to compare these numbers to increased regulatory costs among advisors.

How much extra are advisors spending managing their new responsibilities, and how much do they expect to spend?

Among new agencies being created, the Consumer Financial Protection Board is clearly the biggest, with a budget of $142 million this year and starting staff of 342 people. Next year, the CFPB's budget is set to triple and new hires are projected to soar to 883.

By comparison, the SEC remains much bigger -- even next year, its roughly $1 billion budget will be twice what the CFPB is allocated -- but the additional funding it receives to deal with Dodd-Frank headaches is relatively small compared to what the CFPB or the bank regulators will need to spend.

The Fed has already spent close to four times what the SEC has been allocated to cover Dodd-Frank tasks. And the OCC, which is absorbing the old Office of Thrift Supervision under Dodd-Frank, expects to spend at least $269 million to revamp its operations by 2012.

This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only