While We Wait On The SECU Board's Response...

   Hope "it" doesn't freeze over first!

✅  Last Friday [see post], Julian Hawes who received 31,000+ member votes in last year's election, wrote the SECU Board. Mr. Hawes, re-asked the SECU Board and CEO for a copy of credit union procedures for submitting substantive resolutions for the Annual Meeting. The annual meeting process generally kicks off by the end of May and can be convoluted, so time is at hand. 

Of late, open dialogue and transparency unfortunately, have not exactly been the hallmark of the current CEO, nor SECU Board; hopefully that is about to change.

While we wait to see if the "new/new" remains accountable; you might like to take a look at this credit union blog [link]. You'll see that diminished member rights and participation is not unique to SECU. Won't use the phrase "industry standard", but that often seems to be the controlling intelligence underlying our current leadership thinking.

😎  Shouldn't be hard to publish the "rules of the game"... unless, of course, they haven't been made up yet.

  If not "industry standard"... how about "lowest common denominator"?

   

When Credit Union Members Become A Bother!

   Hate to be a "bother", butt..!

😎 "Can't Touch This!": "You'll know what you need to know when you know it. "

✅ As you learned in the last post [link] the SECU Board was asked to provide information on its procedures for submitting resolutions at the upcoming Annual Membership meeting. The SECU Board after three weeks had failed to acknowledge or respond to the request. Complete silence.

✅ Up until 2022, SECU members could fully participate in the SECU annual meeting - including open questions, discussion, and resolutions. In 2023 the SECU Board unilaterally changed the bylaws, limiting member comments to 2 minutes, with no discussion, response, nor any new business permitted. 

By 2024 no member comments, discussion or resolutions of any sort were permitted  Questions from members (limit one!) could only be submitted in advance of the meeting. A complete list of submitted questions was not made available and responses were robotically read out at the meeting - with no member follow-ups or discussion tolerated.

✅ The good news is that the precedence for active member voting by absentee ballot or email has been established and is working (over 100,000 SECU members voted in 2024!). Substantive member resolutions are still permitted for member action and several should be on the ballot for 2025. That's why the request was submitted for a copy of Board-approved procedures. The SECU Board has created a lengthy annual meeting process with strict procedures and timelines which must be met.

😎 In the occasionally ribald back-and-forth in the comments yesterday, one commenter suggested that the SECU Board and CEO had no duty to respond to an individual member (especially one who wrote a blog!). Don't happen to agree with that type of thinking, but fair enough. 

✅ Below is an additional request from Mr. Julian Hawes sent today to the SECU Board and CEO, requesting that the procedural information be provided. Mr Hawes received 31,203 SECU member votes in the election at the 2024 Annual Meeting.  

Hope the SECU Board will recognize and respect that this is a legitimate request from many SECU members and not from a single individual. The Board has a legal and fiduciary duty to all members to respond as soon as possible.

✅ The Letter: 

4/25/2025

Ms. Mona Moon, Chair

State Employees' Credit Union

119  North Salisbury Street

Raleigh, North Carolina 27601 

mona.moon@board.ncsecu.org

Dear Ms. Moon

In planning for the 2025 SECU Annual Meeting, would you please provide or publish the protocol or approved procedures for the presentation of several substantive member supported resolutions in the notice of the 2025 Annual Meeting?

Several substantive motions will be submitted for consideration by the membership.  By providing this protocol, The credit union can insure that the Board still practices the democratic principles at the core of our credit union. It will also serve to strengthen the credit union and make it more responsive to its member/owners.

A contested election is anticipated again this year . The transparency of the issues and member/owners voting benefits all concerned.

Thank You for your prompt attention to this matter.

Julian Hawes/SECU Member

cc: All SECU Board members

Leigh Brady, CEO leigh.brady@ncsecu.org

 

If members don't really matter anymore, then yes... why should the Board bother with them?

     

 

The Responsive SECU Board Strikes (Out!) Once Again...

    ... and every SECU member!

Well, it has been two weeks since a polite letter was sent to Ms. Mona Moon, Chair of the SECU Board,  Ms. Leigh Brady, CEO, and all SECU Board members.  

The March 31, 2025 email [see below] requested information on SECU's established procedures for SECU member-owners to submit resolutions for 2025 Annual Meeting consideration and balloting. 

To date there has been neither acknowledgement nor response to the request from any party at SECU.

SECU is an organization, owned and controlled by over 2.5 million North Carolinians, each with one vote and a legal right to be heard. SECU is a company with a market value of over $5 billion - a $2,000+ ownership right for each member - that's you and me.   A lot is at stake for the member-owners and all of North Carolina.  The SECU Board does not have the legal right under North Carolina law to bar member participation in their cooperative. 

Despite the law, the SECU Board seems to believe it is unaccountable to the SECU membership. That's unheard of:  "...  companies must comply with stringent legal requirements governing shareholder meetings and resolutions, guaranteeing transparency, accountability, and protection of shareholder interests. Adhering to notice and disclosure obligations, quorum and voting requirements, and proposing and adopting resolutions are imperative for conducting legally compliant shareholder meetings."

✅ The Letter: March 31, 2025

Ms. Mona Moon, Chair

State Employees' Credit Union

119  North Salisbury Street

Raleigh, North Carolina 27601 

 mona.moon@board.ncsecu.org,

 

Ref: 2025 SECU Annual Meeting

Dear Ms. Moon:

In anticipation of the 2025 SECU Annual Meeting, would you please provide or publish the approved SECU Board procedures for the presentation of several substantive, member-supported resolutions in the notice of the 2025 Annual Meeting?  

In compliance with "Rule 6" of the SECU Board's 2024 annual meeting rules, several substantive motions will be submitted for consideration by - and for a vote of -  the SECU membership. 

 

Would like to salute the "every member" voting procedures adopted by the SECU Board in 2024, which enable all SECU members to vote on candidates and issues. A very positive precedent for maintaining the democratic principles at the core of SECU.

In that a contested election is anticipated once again this year, the additional member voting opportunities on substantive issues should not add to the cost nor complexity of the voting process.

Please forward the approved policies and procedures requested at your earliest convenience. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jim Blaine, Member SECU

cc: Ms. Leigh Brady, SECU CEO leigh.brady@ncsecu.org,

 

 

😎 The SECU Board proclaims: "We are SECU!" ... but "they" aren't.

 

Unfortunately,  here "We" go again!

How CU Trade Associations Sometimes Miss What's Really Important.

    There is a Difference!

As noted in yesterday's post [link], sometimes patience is a virtue in politics. With the word of the day in our world being "uncertainty"- in all things apparently!; a bit of caution, a bit of wait-and-see would be prudent ... especially for credit unions.

But prudence and caution have not been the hallmarks of the "H.187 - CU Update" bill in North Carolina - nor has frankness, directness, credibility. If credit unions earn a reputation for seeking self-interest above all else; there will be a reaction, resentment, a price to pay in both politics and public perception. Yet the Carolinas Credit Union League (CCUL) continues to push a bill it claims is little more than an "update"!? 

✅ Trade associations occasionally lose sight of what's really important. A horrible example occurred this week with two rival, national CU trade associations -  the Defense Credit Union Counsel (DCUC) and America's Credit Unions (ACU) - jockeying for primacy at the expense of all credit unions. Both associations "coincidentally" scheduled national webinars on the same date, at exactly the same time to discuss taxation and regulatory consolidation. Here's [link] how it went:

"Both the DCUC meeting and ACU event started Monday at 1 ET and ended at 2 ET. That led one league president, who stated, on the condition of anonymity, that ACU's timing of Monday’s meeting was an unfair move, calling it “copycat.” DCUC set its meeting date last Wednesday."

"DCUC was not invited to take part in ACU's meeting, so I cannot comment on what was discussed,” said Hernandez [DCUC Chair]. “However, I do hope ACU's meeting was meaningful for those who dialed in at the same time and missed DCUC's meeting."

Not sure which trade association won this "ego-round", but pretty sure who lost - all credit union members! Y'know politicians, lobbyists, and credit union adversaries can and do read! The lack of unity among credit unions could not be more clear.

✅ Which brings us back to the "H.187 - CU Update" bill.  Is CCUL's persistence in the best interest of North Carolina's 3 million+ credit union members? Or is it primarily in CCUL's own interest? It's been made clear that not all N.C. credit unions support H.187. Why risk a minor "update" in the midst of such great national uncertainty?

😎 What gives? Is it that the CCUL hasn't found the time to do a credit union legislative update "since 1975" according to the CCUL's CEO? Or is H.187 really about trying to find a way to justify those association dues dollars?

North Carolina's credit union members "heading under the bus"?

 

 

 

 

 

Hubris - Such As H.187 - Can Have Severe Risks... And Real Consequences.

   

   ... NCUA is the federal regulator/insurer of all N.C. credit unions!

  [4/16/2025]  ALEXANDRIA, Va. – "NCUA Board Members Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka, both Democrats, have been fired by the White House.... the firings will only make it easier to roll NCUA up into another regulatory agency, 

In response to objections to the firings, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Reuters, “President Trump is the chief executive of the executive branch and reserves the right to fire anyone he wants.”

As the CU Daily reported earlier, representatives of DOGE were in NCUA’s offices in Alexandria, Va. last week on Thursday and Friday. NCUA was given a mid-March deadline to provide the Trump administration with its plans for laying off employees as part of the White House’s broader effort to reduce the federal workforce.

To date, DOGE has overseen the terminations of tens of thousands of federal government jobs. NCUA has approximately 1,200 employees across its three regions in the U.S. A workforce reduction of 20% would involve close to 250 people..

Another possibility is that DOGE orders NCUA to sell its headquarters office in northern Virginia and move to smaller space. NCUA is one of the few government agencies that owns its own building."

✅ The one thing North Carolina credit unions should not do in the midst of this national controversy is push for passage "H.187 - CU Update".

😎 Or perhaps the Carolinas Credit Union League (CCUL) enjoys putting North Carolina's credit unions in regulatory jeopardy... and doesn't mind exposing the N.C. Legislature to unnecessary political risks?

  Why put everything - and everybody - at risk over H.187?