WASHINGTON-The American Bankers Association is continuing a two-year effort to make a public issue of executive pay at credit unions as part of its campaign for repeal of the tax exemption.
In its latest efforts, a March 22 e-mail from the ABA to all of the credit union trade press disclosed how David Maus, the president of Denver's Public Service CU, received an $11-million pay package in 2010 (CU Journal, April 2). The story was also picked up by local media in Denver and Colorado.
More recently, the ABA sent another e-mail to the credit union trade press and local media on a $7.8-million pay package for Wings Financial CU's CEO, Paul Parish.
The issue of credit union executive pay has the potential to bring embarrassment to credit unions during the critical time surrounding a vote on the member business lending bill. Two weeks ago, the press in Hawaii, citing the disclosures on Public Service CU's Maus' pay, began a campaign to require that federally chartered credit unions also disclose publicly their top executives' pay.
The ABA has been working for two years to attract public attention to credit union executives' pay and has been compiling the compensation figures of top credit union CEOs as disclosed by state charters on the Form 990 they all submit annually the Internal Revenue Service. The ABA's work resulted in some embarrassment by some California credit unions last year after it was disclosed that some credit unions had paid their executives high pay packages even while their credit unions were having bad years, some even losing money.
