A $316 million operating budget – representing an increase of just under 4% from the 2019 spending plan – will be the subject of a Nov. 20 briefing by the federal credit union regulator, the agency said Tuesday.
In releasing its 2020 proposed budget, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) said “a significant cost driver” for the spending plan is an increase in mandatory contributions all federal agencies must make to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS).
“Of the total 3.9% budget increase between 2019 and 2020, 1.6 percentage points of growth are directly attributable to the increased cost of FERS contributions and 2.3 percentage points of growth are the result of changes in agency operations,” the agency said in its budget justification.
NCUA added that the 2.3% increase in agency operations also includes “absorbing the equivalent of 0.8 percentage points of growth for costs avoided in the Share Insurance Fund Administrative Budget. This means the actual budget increase to fund the agency’s operations is the equivalent of 1.5% growth,” the agency said.
The 2020 budget also allows for an increase of three full-time equivalents (FTE) positions at the agency compared to the 2019 board-approved budget, the NCUA said. Overall, the agency will count 1,185 FTEs next year under the spending plan – with five of those to be funded by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund administrative budget.