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Contacted for comment on reports that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had told NCUA (Dateline, CU Times, April 26) to abandon its proposed voluntary low-income service survey for FCUs or resubmit it as a more "scientific" instrument, OMB spokesperson Linda Ricci said that she would have no comment on "internal communications." Ricci added, however, that the email cited as the source of the reports was definitely not an official communication to NCUA and therefore could not represent OMB's official position.
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In a related development, NAFCU President Fred Becker, Jr., citing press accounts of the OMB communication, wrote the NCUA Board April 19 to recommend abandonment of the low-income service survey in any form.
"...NAFCU continues to believe that a survey," Becker wrote, "either mandatory or voluntary, is unnecessary and serves no purpose other than to divide credit unions and potentially serve as the vehicle for the introduction of unnecessary regulations."
Citing NCUA Board Chairman Norman D'Amours own words attesting to credit unions' historical service to the underserved, Becker went on to say, "By issuing a survey asking credit unions to prove how they are serving members of modest means, NCUA ignores both the chairman's statement and the findings of Congress and asks credit unions to expend time and resources that are more effectively used in serving their members."
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The special meeting of the NCUA Board, scheduled for May 3 to consider the agency's new privacy regulation, has been postponed until May 8. Nonetheless, about 100 protesters from the Polish and Slavic FCU (P&SFCU), who had planned to picket NCUA headquarters on May 3 day and attend the board meeting that day, will arrive as scheduled, according to ousted P&SFCU board director Andrew Kaminski.
Kaminski added that he regretted his bus group would not be able to attend the board meeting.
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The April 20 delivery date for the Government Accounting Office's (GAO) report to Congress on the Central Liquidity Facility (CLF) has come and gone without result. A GAO spokesperson said that the report was not finished and she didn't know when it would be.
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NCUA Board Chairman Norman D'Amours, Congressional and Public Affairs Director Robert Loftus, and D'Amours' Executive Secretary Vilma Scindian flew to England April 18 for a week of consultation with English CU officials, and then-without Scindian-will proceed south to Seville, Spain to attend the Defense Credit Union Conference on April 26.
Reached before his departure, Loftus said the chairman's delegation will meet with the British Credit Union League as well as officials of the credit union-regulating British Financial Security Agency, and visit some credit unions on American military bases.
They will then join NCUA Board member Dennis Dollar and his executive assistant at the DCUC conference. The entire entourage will be back in the U.S. by May 1.
Representatives of the British Financial Security Agency, Loftus said, will be visiting NCUA on June 5 and 6. -
gmcorrigan@mindspring.com
