In Ongoing Feud, NCUA's Hood Blasts McWatters Over Cost of Office Furniture

The simmering feud between NCUA Board Member Rodney Hood and former Board Member J. Mark McWatters flared anew this weekend, as Hood accused McWatters of exorbitant spending on office furniture that now will be sold at a federal government auction.

“Delighted @TheNCUA is auctioning Mark McWatters’s $21k furniture,” Hood tweeted. “Furniture this expensive is illegal to purchase at other federal agencies. Credit unions deserve better stewardship of agency resources.”

He also published a copy of the $21.645.75 bill for a standing desk, six chairs, a coffee table and a dining table that was ordered in 2014.

McWatters, for his part, was at a loss to explain why Hood was bringing up this issue now, telling CU Times that Hood’s comments give “an inaccurate reflection of what happened.”

McWatters said, in a statement and interview, that when he joined the board he was told that he could order office furniture as board members had done in the past. The office furniture would be used by agency staff when McWatters left the board. The purchase was within a budget set by the NCUA’s CFO and approved by the Office of the Executive Director and CFO.

Hood and McWatters have long had a strained relationship. McWatters, a Republican, sided with Democrat Todd Harper on some issues, most notably the agency budget.

McWatters resigned from the board in November, just days before he would have been replaced once Kyle Hauptman was confirmed by the Senate. Sources said at the time that Hood had gone to the White House and complained about McWatters, who then was given the option of resigning or being fired.

McWatters confirmed that account in a January op-ed in the Credit Union Journal.

When Joe Biden was sworn in as president, he appointed Harper as chairman, who presided over his first meeting last week. During that meeting, it was announced that Monica Davy, head of the NCUA’s Office of Women and Minority Inclusion, was resigning.

Sources told CU Times that Davy was unhappy with Hood’s management of the agency.

The next day, Hood posted a series of tweets.

One tweet announced the auction; the second provided additional details about the auction. And the third tweet provided a link to a 2018 Washington Post story that said McWatters, then chairman of the NCUA board, spent much of his time managing the agency from his Dallas home.

To that link, Hood added, “This auction should have happened years ago.”

Asked if Hood was taking a cheap shot at him, McWatters said, “No comment.”

The auction is now open and ends Wednesday at 6:02 p.m. Eastern Time.

The following is a statement from McWatters issued Saturday afternoon:

“When I joined the NCUA I was told that I was permitted to purchase office furniture as many other board members had done in the past. The purchase of the office furniture was within the budget provided by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, approved by the Office of the Executive Director and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, was made within the ordinary course of business and was consistent with prior practice within the agency.

“The idea behind the office furniture purchase, as explained by the NCUA staff to me at the time, was that the furniture would be repurposed (following my departure) within the agency to an expanding staff and have a very long useful life. It seems fiscally imprudent for the agency to dispose of the furniture in a fire sale auction. It is disappointing that a six-year-old ordinary transaction, approved by senior staff and fully within budget has been politicized in this manner.”