WASHINGTON — CUNA's Renewal Review Committee touched on a couple of controversial issues, like volunteer participation on the CUNA Board and executive committee term limits, in making its recommendations to the CUNA Board.

When Renewal–the restructuring of CUNA and its governance–was instituted 10 years ago, a framework was put in place to review the changes every five years.

One of the particularly touchy subjects the committee, chaired by Travis Credit Union CEO Patsy Van Ouwerkerk, tackled was the lack of volunteers serving on CUNA's board in the last decade. The committee reasoned that CUNA is an association of credit unions and leagues, not officials, and it is for the credit union to decide who should represent them on the board. “In practice, however, since Renewal no volunteer has been elected to the CUNA Board,” the report acknowledged. “One volunteer has served on the Board, but only after being elected as a CEO and later retiring from the CEO position.”

One approach to obtaining greater volunteer participation is through CUNA committees and other activities. “This would both increase volunteer influence on CUNA governance, and would also offer volunteers the type of experience and exposure that would make them more likely to be successful candidates for CUNA Board seats,” according to the committee. Or, the board could be expanded to include a volunteers' class.

However, the Renewal Review Committee stated it was “not convinced that expanding the CUNA Board…would be appropriate.” Instead the committee recommended that CUNA:

oEngage volunteers in the existing structure through committee assignments.

oPrepare information for prospective board candidates on how to run for office.

oEstablish a national forum that would enable volunteers to provide input to the CUNA Board, such as a taskforce or committee to the CUNA Board. Another idea was to have a Congress of Volunteers with one representative from each league.

The committee also delved into whether CUNA executive committee posts should be term limited. The members acknowledged that there are five executive committee positions with some chairmen serving two years and therefore some board members might be prevented from ever becoming chairman due to the CUNA Board service term limit (three consecutive three-year terms). Though, traditionally, executive committee members “move through” the seats, the report read, “The Committee believes that the three-term term limit for Board service is a core provision of Renewal, and should not be extended. Further, election practices and procedures for Executive Committee positions are an internal board management issue, not a strategic governance issue. The original Renewal Task Force in 1996 was aware of the issue, and believed it should be left to the Board to deal with rather than being stipulated in bylaws. In electing the Executive Committee, Board members should be aware that there is nothing sacrosanct about either moving through all five chairs of the Executive Committee in sequence, or spending two years in each chair. Therefore the Committee believes no changes in policy or bylaws are necessary.” The Renewal Review Committee also recommended not making any changes to the geographically representative proportions. CUNA's six districts (see map) were initially created to represent roughly equal proportions of credit union members (16.7%). Currently, the smallest district has 14.7% of members and the largest 18.3%. The committee determined that a range of plus or minus three percentage points is reasonable though redistricting may be necessary in the future. Additionally, the committee looked at representation by size as with just 222 Class C (large) credit unions, down from 269 in 1996. Still these credit unions represent a growing proportion of credit union members due to a bylaw change in 2001 stipulating that Class C credit unions encompass at least 2.5% of all credit unions. There are currently between 25 and 57 Class C credit unions per district, which raises some concern for the 2.5% solution. One possibility for the future is to hold the six Class C elections nationwide.

Overall, the committee recommended a more thorough review of these representation issues.

Prior to Renewal, credit unions belonged to the state leagues and the leagues belonged to CUNA. The review committee took a second look at the current required dual membership. “The committee believes that the dual membership requirement is vital to ensuring a strong, effective advocacy system, at both the state and federal levels. Elimination of the dual membership requirement would seriously threaten the strength of the system…The Committee is mindful of some of the sentiments of those who support elimination of the dual membership requirement, however, the committee firmly believes that the benefits of maintaining the dual membership system far outweigh those of eliminating it,” the report to the CUNA Board read.

The committee also recommended that the chairman of the Association of Corporate Credit Unions be invited to serve in an ex officio, nonvoting capacity on the board.

Finally, the committee suggested the report be made available to all member credit unions through CUNA's Web site (under CUNA Initiatives at www.cuna.org). –scooke@cutimes.com

Instant Insights /

It's Renewal Time Again for CUNA, Volunteer Board Representation Getting Lots of Play

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