The Dec. 17 open meeting of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board is now a two-day meeting that will wind up Dec. 18 with board action on the agency’s 2021-2022 budget, according to postings Thursday afternoon by the agency.
The Dec. 17 open session will address five proposed and final rules plus a briefing on the 2021 “normal operating level” of the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF) equity ratio, which this year is set at 1.38%.
Dec. 18, the board meeting will include action on the agency budget, a final rule on federal credit union operating fees, and a briefing on the operating fee schedule and overhead transfer rate (OTR, the percentage of the agency’s budget funded through the share insurance fund). There will be a closed meeting that day to address a supervisory action and a personnel action, the agency’s board meeting agenda shows.
By next Thursday, it’s expected the Kyle Hauptman, recently confirmed to fill the board seat previously held by J. Mark McWatters, will have been sworn in and ready to participate in the meetings, barring additional developments.
Both open sessions for next week’s board meeting begin at 10 a.m. ET. The Dec. 17 open meeting agenda includes the following:
- Proposed Rule, Part 701, Appendix B, Field of Membership Shared Facility Requirements.
- Temporary Final Rule, Part 701, Regulatory Relief in Response to COVID-19.
- Proposed Rule, Parts 703 and 721, Mortgage Servicing Rights.
- Proposed Rule, Part 701, Overdraft Policy.
- Final Rule, Parts 701, 702, 709, and 741, Subordinated Debt.
- Board Briefing, Share Insurance Fund 2021 Normal Operating Level.
The NCUSIF equity ratio had dropped to 1.22% at mid-year, 16 basis points below 1.38% normal operating level, due to rapid growth in insured shares. The minimum level by statute is 1.2%; any drop below that would require the board to approve a restoration plan.
Regarding the budget, the figures proposed originally for 2021 and 2022 are $342.5 million and $364.2 million, representing a 1.4% decrease followed by a 6.3% increase, respectively, in the agency’s budget over the next two years.
Both agency Board Member Todd Harper and then-Board Member J. Mark McWatters, during the Nov. 19 open meeting, aired concerns and said they would need to see revisions in order to support it. But McWatters, who had been serving past his term in holdover capacity, resigned Nov. 20, and the Senate on Dec. 2 confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Hauptman to replace McWatters.
Hauptman, approved by the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 56-39, has most recently served as a staff director for the Senate Banking Committee Economic Policy subcommittee and as an economic policy advisor to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). He worked on the 2016 Trump presidential transition team and served as a policy advisor on financial services for 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney (now a U.S. senator representing Utah).