TOPEKA, Kan. — As expected, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has signed the state's restrictive field of membership law which takes effect July 1 and within nine months will force a branching/member pullback by nine CUs, mostly in Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City.

The measure, which contains grandfathered provisions but charts new limits on CU growth based on MSA districts of one million or more.population as well as contiguous county rules was advanced by the banking lobby but finally accepted by the Kansas Credit Union Association.

Echoing a view held by many of the 60 less affected state-chartered CUs, Lee Williams, president/CEO of Central Star CU in Wichita, told Credit Union Times Monday the FOM law “is not the best we could have got but not the worst either–we could have had new taxes and CRA.”

Williams, who is a member of the state's regulatory Credit Union Council, agreed the branch/merger application filing process would now be subject to heightened banker “involvement in our industry:” which is not a good thing. Other Kansas CEOs have called such scrutiny and interference “banker mischief.”

The Wichita CEO said she agreed with that assessment but said “most Kansas credit unions will not know the difference until way down the road” if and when they started expanded FOM beyond contiguous counties.