ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA Board Member Rick Metsger told CreditUnion Times that the 2014 NCUA budget is “fiscally wise,”adding that credit unions are paying less in the end. Metsger alsosaid the final CUSO rule is “cost effective.”

“I think in anything, everybody wants to, everybody raises theirbudget because they think they need to and they think no one elseneeds to raise theirs so I'm kind of used to that from over theyears. This is an extremely fiscally wise budget, meeting ourobligations,” Metsger said in a video interview after the boardmeeting on Thursday at the NCUA headquarters.

“The credit unions are paying less if you noticed at the endresult. The operating fee is being reduced by 18.4 percent from theprevious year in terms of their capital outlay so and that's thehighest in over 10 years and I'm sure the trade organizations likeanyone else would always like to be able to do something fornothing but I'm sure in their own situations they find that theyhave expenses to meet as well,” he added.

Both CUNA and NAFCU called for NCUA to keep the budget level thesame as 2013 or less. The 2014 budget went up $6.7 percent from theprevious year to $268 million.

Credit Union Times also asked Metsger if he issatisfied with the cost of the final CUSO rule after raising concerns in the past.

“When you look at the 100s of millions of dollars that have beenlost to the share insurance fund because of losses of CUSOs vs. the$1.4 million to hopefully get information to help mitigate that,that's an extremely effective cost effective ratio,” Metsgerresponded.