Thursday, November 17, 2016

The NCUA Budget Process: Part 10 ... Where Next?




So, enough of this year's NCUA budget process! 

(Say Amen!)




1) It was a nice gesture on behalf of the NCUA Board to ask for comments - but that is all it was "a nice gesture"!

2) Despite repeated claims, the NCUA budget is not an exercise in "zero based budgeting"; and in fact, is an exercise in standard incremental, "add-to-the-past" budgeting - with little evident prior thought given to the future needs of the agency and staff.

3)  The NCUA budget is primarily driven by personnel cost (about 80%) which is normal for a "service-type" organization. Personnel cost control is restrained by a 5-year union contract.

4) Technology lags noticeably at NCUA, probably because it threatens the status quo and careers of both NCUA management and staff. Technology will win out, the only question is how much pain and suffering on staff and credit unions will it take to overcome NCUA management's inertia - and lack of expertise - in taking the agency into that "brave new world"?  

5) All staff are at personal "job-risk" due to the lack of  thoughtful, "real world" strategic planning by management (and perhaps also by NTEU) for an inevitable future of fewer, larger CUs, automated ("virtual exams") and a drastically different set of required staff skills. 

6) There can never be an legitimate budget process at NCUA until the underlying issue of funding of the agency ("revenues") through the NCUSIF has been honestly and openly addressed.

WHAT NEXT?  APPOINT A COMMITTEE!

No seriously, that's what we need!
And, as a lame duck Chair, what have you got to lose?

The December Board meeting would be an excellent time to start!

ACCOUNTABILITY - COMPETENCE - TRANSPARENCY
"ACT"!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should ask Nussle why he's not a registered lobbyist. Why hire a former congressman if he can't or doesn't lobby congress or regulators? Did he lobby the NCUA budget? Why wasn't Nussle at last month's NCUA budget hearing? Oh yeah, he was at the World Series enjoying the fruits of his $1.5 million salary paid for by CUNA members (except for PenFed). Was he at today''s NAFCU budget vote???

Anonymous said...

Is Dan Berger a registered lobbyist? Lucy Ito?

Anonymous said...

All three trade association CEOs should be registered lobbyists, no?

Dennis Moriarity said...

Don't believe it is possible to make meaningful changes to a budget where such a large proportion of the money is spent on employees. In the last few years, while credit unions have declined rapidly in number, FTE's at NCUA have gone up. Salaries and benefits have also increased. Organized labor, representing the majority of employees at NCUA is not about to sit around and let reductions in numbers, salaries and/or benefits decline. Since the labor agreement probably calls for eventual binding arbitration (where management always loses) the chances that meaningful reduction in the employee costs is remote. Therefore meaningful change is not only unlikely it is impossible. Lest you forget the wage freeze (ordered by President Obama) was ignored by NCUA mainly because it had already been “negotiated”.
The private sectors dramatically lags the government sector and that is worsening considerably. Truly the government employees have gone from the servants of the people to the masters. They enjoy a wage and benefit advantage that will eventually become unsustainable and even now is a contributing factor in the demise of credit unions.
Before it is too late we should recognize that NCUA must be eliminated and its responsibilities turned over to another less costly regulator. If you want to keep playing pretend games that's ok but in the end if you don't get "real" don't forget to bend over and kiss your a-- goodbye.
https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay

Jim Blaine said...

What is the question about "registered lobbyist"t all about? Don't understand the concern...

What's the issue/problem?

Anonymous said...

Good question Jim, I was wondering the same thing. I for one would think you need to be a lobbyist to be an effective advocate for your association or cause. As for being "registered", is there a law or rule that requires our trade CEOs to be "registered"? I will Google it.

Anonymous said...

Got to love Google:

It appears people must "register" to lobby if they meet one of these criteria:

1. You make more than $3,000 in income from lobbying over a three-month period.

2. You have more than one lobbying contact.

3. You spend more than 20% of your time lobbying for a single client over a three-month period.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/so-whos-a-lobbyist.html?mwrsm=Email

Of course this came from Google and New York Times so take it with a grain of salt! Jim, why don't you just ask the lobbyists that work for our trades???