The public facing role of leaders is especially vital during two important circumstances–when there is a transition at the top and during a crisis or moments of great uncertainty.
NCUA’s current situation meets both tests. There is the unprecented removal of two of the three board members by President Trump. This was followed by the immediate departure of up to 250 agency personnel as a cost savings ploy. And as noted below, there has been a sudden increase in credit union regulatory closings.
NCUA’s public responsibility includes timely and informed transparency about events under the agency’s control. There is uncertainty about who is on the leadership team. Who is making critical decisions? How can we trust that NCUA’s actions or inactions are being properly considered or just carried on by rote?
Four FCU Closures in 60 Days
Since April 30, NCUA has taken possession of four FCU credit unions. Two were liquidated outright, one conserved and the other merged. This is a very high number in just two months in a relatively stable operational environment.
The four with summary data from the March 30 call reports are:
Name Date NCUA Action 1Q ‘25 Assets 1Q Net Worth
Unilever April 30 liquidated $ 47 million 9%
Aldersgate June 18 conserved $ 10.6 million 10.2%
Soul Community June 20 liquidated $308K 100%
Butler Heritage June 30 merged $9.6 million 4.92%
Some notes on each case.
For Unilever this immediate liquidation without a conservatorship, suggests a major financial loss similar to the Creighton FCU $13 million shortage in June 2024. NCUA has provided no explanation for the sudden insolvencies in either case.
Aldersgate with 10% capital, was chartered in 1956 to serve the Methodist church employees. It was conserved without explanation or even notice of who is now running the operations. NOTE: this morning NCUA stated it liquidated the credit union.
Soul Community was chartered on December 9, 2024. At March, it reported 21 members with $308K in assets, but no loans or expenses. All capital. How can a new charter which naviagates NCUA’s arduous charter steps including both credit union mentors and examiner oversight, end up stillborn?
Butler Heritage is the one example of financial underperformance, but still with 5% net worth. An ironical message on the credit union’s website assures members they are in good hands with NCUA oversight:
BHFCU is charted and supervised by the National Credit Union Administration. NCUA performs annual examinations of the credit union’s records, policies, and procedures. This ensures the credit union’s financial soundness and verifies operations are conducted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
This number of regulatory closings in two months is highly unusual. The lack of any factual information about these FCU’s circumstances is unsettling.
This failure to inform the public undermines trust in NCUA’s supervision, not to mention a credit union’s reputation with sponsors like Unilever. These are, or should be, unusual events. No one is explaining them.
The silence raises the question whether NCUA is using their authority to coverup supervisory or examination shortcomings with NCUSIF funding. Were there annual exams? Supervisory contacts?Especially troubling are the similarities between Creigton and Unilever’s sudden dramatic losses of published net worth.
The Importance of NCUA Board Meetings
In this time of leadership transition and growing uncertainty, public board meetings are critical to understand what the agency’s leadership is focused on.
For the past 18 months, NCUA’s board meeting schedule has been at best erratic. In 2024 Chairman Harper was on medical leave for several months and Ostka on maternity leave.
Even when a full board was present, the substance was limited and hard topics or discussions avoided.
In the first six months of 2025 only two public meetings have occurred. One was with the full board in February and Hauptman’s solo meeting in May.
The NCUA has said the schedule of future board meetings is “tentative.” In a June 6th press announcement the Agency stated: dates of NCUA Board meetings should be considered tentative until the issuance of a formal meeting notice. All future meetings’ agendas and schedules are subject to change at any time.
Some have gone further to assert there is no requirement to hold a monthly meeting period. Rather board meetings need occur only when the need arises.
Public NCUA board meetings are both a responsibility and a recognition that the Agency’s leadership is accountable to credit unions and the public.
Some credit unions have asked to end their mandatory monthly board meeting. At this point I yield my pen to Ancin Cooley.
His response to the suggestion that board meetings should be optional applies to both credit unions and NCUA. They are an inherent responsibility of what it means to be a board member as he explains below:
Monthly Board meetings are not the problem.
They serve one critical purpose: cadence.
That cadence builds a culture of reporting, transparency, and member-focused accountability. It keeps the board engaged—not just symbolically but structurally. It’s a space to learn, ask, challenge, and listen. It’s where the member’s voice is supposed to show up.
And if your board meetings are dragging or bloated? There are better ways to fix that than eliminating the meeting altogether. . .
There is a free-market capitalism running its playbook inside the cooperative movement. . .
We are watching it unfold in full view:
- Opposition to mandatory succession planning.
- “Fiduciary duties of Credit Union Directors” 12 C.F.R. § 701.4? Routinely unenforced—more decorative than functional.
- Supervisory committees? Once a critical layer of oversight, now neutered and marginalized—weakened to the point of impotence
Each move—on its own—can be rationalized.
But taken together? It’s a pattern. A roadmap. Its “open season” on credit unions. . .
Let me get ahead of the most common rebuttal:
“It’s just removing the requirement to meet monthly. A credit union can still choose to meet every month if it wants to.”
Yes, technically, they could.
But that’s not the point.
This isn’t about convenience or choice. This is about institutional welfare.
There are some safeguards you don’t leave to chance, because they protect the collective health of the system.
That’s why we don’t suggest seatbelt use. We don’t recommend elder abuse protections. We mandate them—because of the public trust at stake. . .
This is the cooperative movement. And with that comes a higher standard of care—because the people advocating for these changes did not build these institutions with their own money. They inherited them. And now they’re chipping away at the very frameworks that make them trustworthy.
I would hope all NCUA staff would read his words. Public duty is a public trust. Regular public board meetings are an essential aspect of an NCUA board member’s obligation to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office.