PALM DESERT, Calif.–With all the focus by CU trade associations on “advocacy,” Diana Dykstra said the question she hears from credit unions most frequently is this: “Where are the legislative wins?”
Dykstra, president of the California and Nevada leagues, told the association’s REACH Conference that “wins” should also be thought of in terms of legislative proposals that never became law in either Sacramento or Carson City.
“I think one of the things we haven’t done is talk about the things we stopped,” said Dykstra. “There were two bills in California that would have been extremely costly to credit unions. One would have raised the exemption on bankruptcies from $75,000 to $300,000. The second was the earthquake authority in California wanted to have every house retrofitted, and would have created a super lien, meaning they could foreclose over your first or second. On both of those our legislative team worked day and night to make sure those didn’t pass.
“In Nevada, they, too, had their super lien (proposed) by homeowners’ associations and the dues not paid. Credit unions with loans on those houses would have lost their money. They also neutralized a tax bill that came out of the governor’s offices.”
Other news:
- Dykstra said that Plexcity, a CUSO jointly owned by the Maryland/DC Credit Union Association, the New Jersey CU League and the California/Nevada leagues, which was created to decrease back office expenses at the leagues, is doing just that. The CUSO has recently added the Hawaii league and NASCUS as partners, and Dykstra said another “large league” would be coming on board soon. “The cost savings for us this year was about 17%, and next year it will be 30%, and we think when these other leagues come on it will get to 50%,” said Dykstra.
- For the first time in 43 years, former WesCorp CEO Richard Johnson was not in attendance at the league annual meeting. Johnson, who went on to create the Richard Myles Johnson Foundation, which focuses on financial literacy, is a pioneer in credit unions for the work he has done. Dykstra urged everyone to make a $43 donation to the RMJ Foundation in honor of Johnson.