WASHINGTON—The credit union trade groups aren’t taking sides in the spat between NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz and Board Member Mark McWatters, instead using the opportunity to reiterate their support for public hearings to be held on the agency’s budget.
At issue are comments made by McWatters before Pennsylvania’s credit unions in which he accused the agency of treating CUs like “Victorian era schoolchildren,” and Matz’s response that “Professor McWatters” needs to come down from his “ivory tower.”
McWatters’ statement came in remarks before the Pennsylvania CU Association that public hearings on the agency’s annual budget would lead to greater transparency and accountability. McWatters also asserted that NCUA should “renounce its imperious ‘my-way-or–the-highway’ approach to the agency’s budget process.
McWatters, who is often the dissenting vote in the 2-1 votes on the NCUA board, said he supports bipartisan legislation pending in both the Senate and the House that would require NCUA to hold public hearings (HR. 2287, S.924).
Responding to McWatters’ remarks, NCUA Chairman Matz suggested that “Professor McWatters would be better served by stepping down from his ivory tower and working with his NCUA Board colleagues to make policy, rather than make headlines.”
NAFCU responded to the rare public airing of differences by NCUA board members on Wednesday by saying Congress should “require NCUA to hold public budget hearings since it is a straightforward, common-sense practice that will help give credit unions a say in the agency’s setting of its yearly operating budget, which is funded directly by credit unions and their members,” said Carrie Hunt, senior vice president of government affairs and general counsel. “NAFCU will continue to back efforts to enhance budget transparency at the agency.”
CUNA reminded that it has been a strong advocate for increasing the transparency and accountability of the NCUA budget process.
“Which is why we have asked Congress to require the agency to hold an annual hearing on its budget,” explained Ryan Donovan, CUNA’s chief advocacy officer. “There’s a lot of receptivity to this proposal because members of Congress participate in similar hearings nearly every day Congress is in session. It’s absolutely not too much to ask for the board members to spend one day each year listening to the concerns of those who send the agency its resources. The funds that credit unions send to NCUA are credit union member funds; as stewards of those resources, credit unions ought to have at least a voice in how they are deployed.”