Dolly Rios, CPA

Dolly Rios, CPA, is also a financial consultant for charter schools in New York, and has served the non-profit community for 23 years. Prior to starting the firm, she was director of finance for St. Bartholomew’s Church and School in midtown Manhattan, where she first worked with Ray. She oversaw the accounting department for this large, successful religious organization, which included a parish and school, restaurant, theatre company, concert series and athletic facility, and completed three fiscal audits within her first year.

Dolly is on the adjunct faculty of Baruch College, her alma mater, where she teaches Advanced Accounting. It’s a great pleasure for Dolly to impart her knowledge to the newer generations.

She has also supervised a large audit department in a midtown CPA firm with responsibility for conducting all aspects of audits for not-for-profit institutions with annual budgets ranging from $1 million to $100 million.

Dolly has lived in New York City for 26 years, after moving to the city with her family from Cali, Colombia. She is a very hard worker, earning both her undergraduate degree from Baruch College and her CPA certification while working full time.

She also likes to give back to her community and was recruited to participate as a mentor in a program designed to help young accountants. She also volunteers during tax season to prepare tax returns for low-income families residing in Corona, Queens.

Dolly is an avid reader and belongs to a book club.

Ray McGarrigle, CPA

Ray, a licensed certified public accountant in New York and Massachusetts, founded the firm in 2010, after spending decades as a partner in three other CPA firms. He founded Rios and McGarrigle with a strong mission and vision for the growth of his clients, and his background bears this out. As general manager of Saint Bartholomew’s Church and School at Park Avenue and 51^st Street in Manhattan, Ray rapidly grew revenue from $1.5 million to $8.5 million, and attendance burgeoned to more than 1,000 a week. Prior to his 12 years here, he was the founding Managing Partner of McGarrigle, Sherbow & Delisle, a regional CPA firm with offices in Western Massachusetts specializing in work with entrepreneurs, start-ups and not-for-profits.

He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants. Ray believes in doing good while doing well, and readily gives back to the community. He has served on the board and as treasurer for a variety of community organizations, including Holyoke Hospital, Springfield Symphony, Save the Mountain Park Merry-Go-Round the Hartford Seminary and the VOICE Charter School. He served on the Vestry and was Junior Warden and Senior Warden of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Holyoke. He was a member of the Stewardship Advisory Service and chaired the Clergy and Laity Compensation Commission for the Diocese of Western Massachusetts.

When he isn’t not working, Ray can be found in Carnegie Hall or Tanglewood listening to the Boston Symphony, on the coast of Maine reading the latest work by John le Carre, or exploring Edinburgh.

Shaneela Qayyum, Staff Accountant

Shaneela graduated from St. John’s University with a B.S./M.S. in Accounting and has been with Rios & McGarrigle, LLC, since 2017. Working at Rios & McGarrigle has allowed her to maintain both a family and professional life. Rios and McGarrigle gives her the flexibility she needs. Working for various clients, she said, has been an educational experience. The fundamentals of accounting don’t change but each client teaches you something new about yourself and the corporate world. “It’s never a boring day,” she said.

Internship Program

As an Adjunct Professor, Dolly observed that many of her students, mainly minorities, had few opportunities to intern with the big accounting firms. As a result, she opened a door for interns at Rios & McGarrigle, LLC. During the internships, interns learn to work the full accounting cycle such as cash receipts, cash disbursements, payroll and bank reconciliations. They also get exposure to the latest accounting software. They practice analytical work and learn about the ethics that will help them when they join the corporate workforce. Dolly supervises the interns very closely and takes them to client meetings so that they can observe interactions with clients. Interns are compensated based on their experience level.

2018 interns:

• Monica Castro, who graduated from La Guardia Community College in 2016, and seeks to pursue her four-year degree at Queens College.
• Karen Mosquera, a Queens College student who wants to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 2020.
• Natalie Troisi, who graduated from the State University of New York at Geneseo. and is pursuing a master’s degree in accounting.