A group of 10 government employee credit unions, caught in abitter standoff a year ago with the Missouri Department ofTransportation and forced to relocate because of a state budgetsqueeze, is making headway this month finding new sites, withone CU rebranding and opting for a community charter.

Choosing the renaming route effective this week is the former$13.8 million District 4 Highway CU of Lee’s Summit, now calledSummit Ridge CU with a state-approved community charter and in afacility two miles from its former headquarters.

“We’re in a good location but we look at what happened as apositive opportunity,” said Brenda Rempe, president/CEO and one ofthe CU managers of the small highway CUs unsuccessfully fightingthe state order to vacate their old sites by December 2012.

Rempe said four other Division Highway CUs with district officesin both rural and metro areas of the state have also relocatedbut hers is the only one so far that applied with the MissouriDivision of Credit Unions for a community charter.

“I am not sure if the others will but it is an individualdecision based on their own markets,” said Rempe, noting a numberof the very rural CUs may simply decide to move without applyingfor a community charter.

During the battle with the state over the highway CUs, theMissouri Credit Union Association had also tried to musterlegislative support to block the relocations and the payrollcutoffs on grounds it would cause undue financial injury inthe communities. A number of the workers were employees of thestate receiving government paychecks.

“Right now we are in a hunt for a new site and we’ll decidewhether we rent or buy,” said Linda Klaproth, manager of the $11million Division 10 Highway Employees of Sikeston, who a year agodescribed the “nightmare” of the budget cutbacks withlong-time CU employees threatened with losing jobs.

Just how many of the CUs might also apply for a communitycharter was uncertain. “We’re just not doing that now,” said aspokeswoman for one of the CUs, $17 million District Highway 2CU of Macon.