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The NCUA Board on Thursday approved budgets of $298.2 million for 2017, up 2.5 percent from 2016, and $312.1 million for 2018. The 2017 budget is down about $1 million from an earlier estimate, but NAFCU is urging added efforts to rein in growth.

For the 2017 budget, NCUA will assess a total of $104.8 million in operating fees from federal credit unions. The remaining will be funded through a 67.7 percent overhead transfer rate and miscellaneous sources. Credit unions with assets less than $1 million will not be assessed an operating fee. NAFCU-member credit unions can calculate and compare the respective dollar amounts of their fiscal 2017 operating fees with the association's Operating Fee Calculator.

"While NAFCU and our members appreciate that NCUA Board Chairman Rick Metsger and Board Member J. Mark McWatters listened to our concerns during last month's budget briefing, the budget approved today does not reflect a material change in spending efficiency," said NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger, who attended yesterday's meeting. "Every dollar credit unions send to support NCUA's budget is a dollar not being used serving their members. However, we welcome the $1 million decrease from budget projections as a first step, and we hope it signals a trend toward further budget discipline in years to come."

NCUA said the $1 million reduction from each of its 2017 and 2018 budget projections is the result of lessened costs associated with travel and training.

The 2017 OTR is down from this year's 73.1 percent. NCUA staff said this addresses a reduction in state examination hours and the reassignment of 20,000 of these hours to compliance and training activities.

During the meeting, NCUA staff also reminded the board that stakeholder feedback was solicited on the OTR methodology. During the 90 day comment period, NCUA received 40 comments on the methodology. Commenting on the methodology, NAFCU encouraged the agency to commit to ongoing and consistent transparency when calculating the OTR. NCUA is currently reviewing those comments, and is expected to make recommendations to improve the methodology in January 2017.

In other actions during Thursday's board meeting:

• The board unanimously approved a final rule related to the Community Development Revolving Loan Fund. In August, NAFCU expressed support for the proposed technical amendments to the CDRLF rule that aim to make the rule more succinct and transparent.
• The board also approved 10 recommendations from the agency's Exam Flexibility Initiative working group as part of the agency's budget discussions. Among the recommendations approved is an extended examination cycle for well-run, healthy federal credit unions with less than $1 billion in assets. NAFCU continues to call for an extended exam cycle for all well-run, healthy credit unions regardless of asset size.
• The NCUA estimated a 2017 share insurance premium assessment in the range of 3-6 basis points. Read more.