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Tim Harrington, the president of T.E.A.M. Resources of Tucson, Ariz., discussed how credit union board directors can stay financially literate in Tuesday's NAFCU webcast, "Creating and Understanding a Dashboard of Key Ratios for Directors."

Harrington is a certified public accountant who has 25 years of credit union experience. He said the dashboard structure and the ratios it prioritizes depend on the specifics of each credit unions. "Your strategy will give you different trends and different ratios that you at your credit union should be looking at," Harrington said.

The most important ratios, he said, are:

• the capital-to-assets ratio, or net worth;
• the return-on-assets ratio;
• asset/liability management-related measures;
• loan-related measures; and,
• deposit-related measures.

Harrington said his metaphor of governing with a dashboard is perhaps better described as using an instrument panel: "You can run a big ship using an instrument panel," he pointed out. He discussed how different measures can be arranged outside of the box of management which can create checks and balances and a structure which can help the board understand how well the credit union is running. Examples of "outside the box" checks included regulatory exams, internal and external audits and member and staff surveys.

NAFCU's webcasts are available for up to 12 months after the live broadcast; access is covered by the registration fee.