Credit Union Exam Solutions Presents With Flying Colors

Treichel: Hey everyone, this
is Mark Treichel with another

episode of With Flying Colors.

I guess this is an emergency
podcast, using that term loosely.

I follow some sports podcasts and
with it being free agent time, they're

doing a lot of emergency podcasts when
the Minnesota Vikings signed certain

free agents, which has been cool.

So I'm in that emergency podcast mode.

So I'm sitting here minding my own
business And I get an email from the

Federal Register which I subscribe to.

I subscribe to notifications that
are put in the public register for

NCUA and other federal agencies.

And I saw That this related to N.

C.

U.

A.

So I downloaded the P.

D.

F.

And it indicated that there
was a meeting that occurred.

And I thought, is this for the
upcoming March board meeting?

And no, it was a meeting
that they held today at 10 a.

m.

on N.

C.

U.

A.

personnel actions and the notice
to the federal register, which

says it will be published in
the federal register tomorrow.

But this is what they
filed stated that at 10 a.

m.

today, March 12th, the NCOA board
met, and they met in a closed

status because there were things
that they couldn't say publicly.

And it says the NCOA board unanimously
determined that agency business required

holding a closed meeting with less
than seven days notice to the public.

And that no earlier notice
of the meeting was possible.

Generally speaking they always
have to say that because that's

how they comply with the law.

They have to say, we couldn't have told
you earlier and this was an emergency.

Matters to be considered, personnel
closed pursuant to Exemption 2,

and it explains who the contact
person is, et cetera, et cetera.

Over its history, NCUA has gone from
having open board meetings, followed

by closed board meetings, and different
boards at NCUA view the legal rights

for what you can do at a closed meeting,
what you can do by notation vote, etc.

differently.

Some boards had a very robust, closed.

For example this personnel closed
pursuant to exemption to item that is

here Yolanda wheat back when she was
on the NCAA board had this on every

board meeting, just in case she wanted
to propose that somebody be moved.

She was pretty aggressive in that regard.

So every board meeting that came
out when Yolanda wheat was on the

board would have the open agenda and
then would have the closed agenda

since Todd Harper has been back.

There have been very few closed board
meetings, which means those things

are being done by notation vote.

And so you have the things that are done
in the sunshine in the open meeting.

You have things that are done
in the closed meeting with less

sunshine, because they have legal
reasons to not be disclosed.

So you could be talking about a
credit units being conserved, and

you could be talking about the camel
ratings, or you could be talking

about promoting someone, or you could
be talking about firing someone.

That's where these
personnel items come in.

Or, with the recent deadlines that I
saw that OPM has created for agencies

to put their restructure plans together,
my guess, and this is a guess, I've not

heard from anybody particularly at NCUA.

And I don't want to hear from
anybody at NCUA because I don't want

anybody who is in the know To be
accused of having told me anything.

I'm doing this based solely on what
I'm reading on federal agencies and

solely what I know about how NCUA runs.

So there was a personnel item done
at the, at a closed board meeting.

They didn't tell the world about
it until after it happened.

And it could have been somebody
was promoted, although I

doubt that's what it is.

I truly believe this links to a
restructure plan, whether that's

buyouts whether that's riffs.

Reductions in force.

My guess is it would be buyouts
that they're offering certain

things to try and hit a target.

Cause as I believe I mentioned in
a previous podcast Kyle Helpman

at GAC indicated that the.

That the excuse me, Kyle help
and indicated that staff he could

expect a staff cut of about 100.

Now did all of those come from
the Trump buyout of 8 months?

Probably not.

My guess is that something
was proposed today.

And I also am guessing that since they've.

Had zero closed board meetings in at
least, I want to say it's at least a

year, but I think it's at least two years
that Kyle Haltman probably took it down

the path of doing this by notation vote.

But if you read the trade press,
there was an excellent article in

CU times where there's a release.

Referencing a release that Todd Harper
put out about him vehemently disagreeing

with Kyle Hauptman changing the call
reports for billion dollar credit unions.

It's very clear to me, the honeymoon
at the end to a board level is over.

And so it's possible that Kyle Hauptman
tried to do this by notation vote.

And the way notation votes work
is you can do it by notation vote.

And you could end up with a
two, one vote and everybody

agrees to do bone notation vote.

You could have a unanimous vote and
everybody agrees to do notation vote.

But if one board member decides they want
to pull it to the table, they can say, I

don't agree to put this by notation vote.

And so it's possible that the two D's
said we want to do this at the table.

And this is basked in the statement
that this was done unanimously.

And so Houtman said, okay, I agree.

We'll do this.

We'll take this to the board and
we'll vote to have this meeting.

That's that may have happened, or they
could have just decided to do it at

a closed meeting because it needed
discussion, which would make sense.

If you're talking buyouts and the
ramifications of those, you think there

should be a robust dialogue on the closed
record about what the board is thinking.

So my guess is NCOAs have the it's
most challenging or exciting board

meeting for staff and for the board.

Will they be making
announcements relative to this?

Will they be sending this over to OPM?

Will they be sending offers out
to staff, et cetera, et cetera?

All of these are unknown, but some of
those, my guess is about to happen.

So anyway, I will do a post on
LinkedIn about this as well, but I

believe something big as it relates
to the restructuring of NCOA may have

happened at the board table just.

An hour and a half ago, or who knows,
maybe it's still going on as we speak, if

they can't reach consensus and remember
there's two Democrats and one Republican

Kyle Hauptman is trying to comply with
the wishes of the Trump administration.

But he doesn't have a second vote, but
will the Democrats agree to do some things

that might make sense for NCOA or not?

We may never know all the details,
but we'll start to see some things

trickle out when we see who's.

who's leaving, how quickly they're
leaving, or if this was just a

promotion or reassignment of people,
which, by the way, makes absolutely

no sense in all this chaos, maybe
this is much ado about nothing.

But the fact that they dropped
this out there, boom, we have

to have this meeting signals
something strange going on at NCUA.

All right, that's it.

This is Mark Treichel and if I have
more on this later, I will let you know.