In a letter to NCUA, New York Credit Union Association President/CEO William J. Mellin provided input on the agency’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking requesting suggested bylaw changes. His comments were a reflection of feedback received from New York credit union leaders in a survey conducted by the Association.
Specifically, Mellin urged the agency to clarify precisely what powers credit unions have to remove disruptive and abusive credit union members.
“Unfortunately, there have been so many opinion letters detailing various powers related to the removal of members that the bylaw language has ceased to be of much use,” Mellin wrote.
He also suggested that NCUA should consider reducing the amount of due process to which a credit union member is entitled before being removed for abusive and/or disruptive conduct. Instead of mandating that an expulsion has to be approved pursuant to a special meeting of the membership, Mellin suggested that credit unions should be allowed to delegate removal authority to boards of directors.
Additionally, Mellin suggested that:
- NCUA should improve the process used for approving bylaw amendments forwarded to them by credit unions;
- the agency should not require membership qualifications for board directors to be embedded into the bylaws; and
- NCUA should not go forward with any proposals in using technology to increase participation at annual meetings until it has confidence that the technology to be used is resistant to tampering.