With the financial crisis hogging the headlines, it’s been a while since we’ve had news to report on 404. For those who were wondering, it appears the Securities and Exchange Commission’s cost-benefit study of Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 is underway. Albeit a bit behind schedule. A press release from Wake Forest University notes that a member of its faculty, PricewaterhouseCoopers Faculty Fellow and associate accounting professor George Aldhizer, has been selected to assist in the Section 404 cost-benefit study being funded by the SEC’s Office of Economic Analysis to collect and analyze the “real world” costs and benefits of Section 404 compliance.

The study was announced by the SEC in connection with its plan to delay for non-accelerated filers the compliance date for auditor attestation requirement under Section 404(b) of Sarbanes-Oxley.

The SEC said it would use the extra time to determine whether efforts to ease 404 implementation pain, in the form of a new auditing standard and related implementation guidance for auditors of smaller public companies and guidance for management issued in 2007, are making internal control evaluations and audits for smaller companies more cost effective.

Under the extension, formally proposed in January and approved by the SEC in June, the Section 404(b) requirements apply to smaller public companies beginning with fiscal years ending on or after Dec. 15, 2009. Non-accelerated filers began complying with the management report requirement—Section 404(a)—for fiscal years ending on or after Dec. 15, 2007.

Interestingly, the release notes that the final report to the SEC is expected to be ready in “late spring 2009.” That’s a little later than originally expected. Earlier SEC announcements of the study said it was expected to be complete “by late summer or early fall.” But, hey, things have been a little busy in Washington for the last several weeks.

WFU notes that Aldhizer will work with market research companies The Henne Group and QSA Integrated Research Solutions, to survey thousands of public companies subject to the regulations and to analyze and interpret the data collected.