NCUA Proposes $315.6 Million Operating Budget, New Priorities Emerge

The NCUA on Friday proposed a $315.6 million operating budget for 2021, a 0.1% decrease compared to the agency’s current budget.

The agency estimated that its 2022 budget will reach $341.8 million.

Combining the agency’s three budgets — operating, capital and the administrative budget for the Share Insurance Fund — the agency projected an overall budget of $342.5 million, which is 4.9% less than the agency projected for next year and 1.4% less than in 2020.

The NCUA estimated the agency will end this year having spent $18.3 million less than the board budgeted for the year.

For 2021, the agency proposed adding five full-time equivalent employees, with two of the new employees in the agency’s consumer protection division. NCUA Board Member Todd Harper, who is likely to become chairman of the board when President-elect Biden takes office, has been pushing for additional staff for consumer protection efforts.

Last year, he proposed adding three positions in that office.

NCUA officials said they expect that the agency will continue remote examinations until the first few months of 2021 as a result of the coronavirus crisis. They said as a result, the agency’s travel budget will decrease by about 25%.

The NCUA board will be briefed on the agency’s budget at its Thursday meeting and will hold a hearing on the plan on Dec. 2. Comments on the plan are due Dec. 11 and the NCUA board will vote on it at its December meeting.

The 2021 budget also called for:

• An Overhead Transfer Rate of 62.3%, an increase of one percentage point higher than in 2020.
• An overall operating fee that is 17.7% below the 2020 level.
• A $1.6 million increase in the Share Insurance Fund administrative budget. The increase is primarily due to costs associated with tools and technology used to oversee credit union-run stress testing at the largest credit unions.
• $3.7 million to retire the note owed by the operating budget to the Share Insurance Fund for the agency’s headquarters building in Alexandria, Va.
• One new employee in the Office of Consumer Financial Protection to develop tiered examinations, lead consumer protection compliance reviews and help develop training materials for examiners and credit unions.
• One new employee in the Office of Consumer Financial Protection to support financial inclusion in the industry by developing financial literacy outreach activities.
• One new position in the Office of Examination and Insurance to provide enhanced risk mitigation and program support in the credit risk area.