WASHINGTON – The American Bankers Association, which has been working for two years to make a public issue of executive pay at credit unions as part of its campaign for repeal of the tax exemption, has found an ally in its attempts, the credit union trade press–without the ABA’s fingerprints on it.
In its latest efforts, a March 22 email 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 and that e-mail was followed within hours by a story in the credit union trade press without ever citing the bankers’ lobby as the source. The $11-million salary has since been picked up by the mainstream press throughout Colorado, causing embarrassment to the credit union, which has been trying to justify such a large pay for Maus, and for all credit unions as they lobby Congress for their member business loan bill.
And on Friday, just hours after the ABA sent another e-mail to the credit union trade press on a $7.8-million pay package for Wings Financial CU’s Paul Parish the credit union trade press followed up with its own story about the credit union CEO’s pay, without ever mentioning the ABA as its source.
The issue for credit union executive pay has the potential to bring embarrassment to credit union’s during the critical time surrounding a vote on the MBL bill. Just last week, 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—without the ABA’s fingerprints on the disclosures.
