Our Position
The NCUA Board should discover efficiencies within the agency to help reduce their overall operating budget considering industry consolidation. We urge the agency to continue to provide increased transparency in the budget process as well. NAFCU believes that public budget briefings are an indispensable opportunity for the industry to provide thoughtful input on the NCUA’s expenditures.
Following repeated requests from NAFCU, the NCUA Board held a public budget briefing in October 2016 for the first time in several years. At the briefing, NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger delivered remarks urging the NCUA Board to significantly reduce the agency's operating budget.
NAFCU continues to advocate for the NCUA Board to discover efficiencies within the agency to help reduce its overall operating budget. This should include extending the examination cycle for well-managed, low-risk federal credit unions with less than $1 billion in assets as recommended by the Exam Flexibility Initiative Working Group and supported by NAFCU.
NAFCU believes that the continued expansion of the NCUA's budget is a dangerous threat to the safety and soundness of the industry, as every dollar credit unions send to the NCUA for its budget is a dollar they cannot use to serve their members. The NCUA budget has increased every year since the 2008 financial crisis, despite the improved economic health and stability of the industry. The NCUA should be decreasing its budget as the industry continues to consolidate. With fewer credit unions to examine and supervise, NCUA's budget should be reduced in those areas accordingly.