A proposal to adjust credit union bylaws and another addressing procurement processes were approved for publication by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board at its March monthly meeting; both were issued for 60-day comment periods.
The bylaws proposal, according to agency staff briefing the board members, is intended to “streamline, clarify and improve” standard federal credit union bylaws. The impetus for the effort, staff members said, were comments by the agency’s Regulatory Reform Task Force, which the NCUA staff said recommended “wholesale changes to the standard bylaws” to reflect developments among credit unions over the past decade. To gather input for those changes, an advance notice of proposed rulemaking will be issued with five questions about the bylaws (based on input from the task force):
- How can the amendment process be approved?
- How can addressing limitation of service and expulsion of members be clarified?
- How can facilitation of the recruitment and development of directors be improved?
- How can encouragement of member attendance at annual and special meetings be improved?
- Should overlaps between the NCUA’s regulations and the bylaws be eliminated?
In remarks about the changes, NCUA Board Chairman J. Mark McWatters urged comments from stakeholders; “we have a clean slate right now.” Board Member Rick Metsger urged stakeholders to peruse the last paragraph on page 12 of the proposal in suggesting bylaws changes. That passage urges commenters to “provide a brief statement regarding whether the FCU Act would permit such a change.”
In other action, the two-member board approved a proposal amending its procurement processes, particularly its “suspension and debarment procedures.” Those refer to the agency’s ability to define rules for how contractors will do business with the agency. In supporting the proposal, McWatters said it “seems unfair to suspend someone if they don’t know what the rules are; we need to say ‘here are the rules, we expect you to comply with them.’”
NCUA Board Seeks Comments on Possible Credit Union Bylaws Changes