ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A new contract with NCUA's fledgling examiners union will add more than $2 million to the agency's budget next year and will push up pay for all NCUA employees by an average of 5%, NCUA said yesterday.
The contract, part of a $158.6 million budget approved yesterday by the NCUA Board, will mean an average 10% increase in operating fees paid by federally chartered credit unions. For example: a $5 million credit union will pay $1,115 (up $100); a $100 million credit union will pay $22,297 (up $2,000); and a $1 billion credit union will pay $197,245 (up $25,000).
The budget increased NCUA’s overall spending by 4.3%. By far the biggest portion of the budget, almost 75%, is employee pay and benefits. NCUA had hoped to raise employees' pay by an average of 3.5%–the rate being provided for all federal employees–but a contract agreed to last month with the National Treasury Employees Union instead will provide average raises of 5% for the 750 covered employees for each of the next three years, meaning the agency's other 200 employees will get the same rate.
The vast majority of the employees covered are examiners.
The union contract will provide merit pay raises starting in March–from a low of 2.75% to as much as 8.25%. But just as importantly, NCUA will award all of its employees so-called locality raises based on the increase of the cost-of-living in each locality, averaging almost 3%.
As a result, some NCUA employees will be receiving pay raises of as much as 12% to 15% next year.
