What About the Kids
The Office of Thrift Supervision isn't the only casualty of regulatory reform.
Parents at the Small Savers Child Development Center, which is housed in the agency's building, were notified in an Aug. 26 letter from the OTS that the center would be closing next year.
The letter said that since the reform law is eliminating the OTS, the agency can no longer support the center and that it would close July 21, 2011, exactly one year after the signing of the Dodd-Frank Act.
The OTS has offered use of the center rent-free for more than 20 years.
Small Savers "sent us a letter asking what the future would be given the passage of the bill, so we let them know as long as the OTS exists, we would continue to support the day care center, but we couldn't commit to supporting them beyond the date the OTS exists," said William M. Ruberry, a spokesman for the OTS.
Small Savers is convenient for government employee parents in offices near the White House, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and World Bank. Sixty percent of the children at the center are from government employee families.
But all may not be lost. Several parents are lobbying to keep the center open when the OTS transfers ownership of its building to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. They have contacted lawmakers and are to begin meeting this week with officials from the OCC, FDIC and Federal Reserve Board.
Adina Adler, a parent and a member of the Small Savers board of directors, suggests the OCC, FDIC or Fed could keep the building and the center open. She said a year isn't enough notice, since finding day care in Washington can involve years-long waiting lists. "We understand the transition team still hasn't worked everything out, who's going to take ownership of the building, who's going to take ownership of the employees of the building," Adler said. "We do have a number of options, but the bottom line is we need a decision on the early side so parents and the teachers as well can make arrangements."
Satisfaction
Reg reform will pile on new work at the financial agencies, but at least in the year Dodd-Frank was signed, most employees at the agencies were happy in their jobs.
In the annual "Best Places to Work in Federal Government" survey, the FDIC ranked third among large agencies, with a 79% employee satisfaction ranking. (The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was No. 1 and the General Accounting Office No. 2.)
The OCC ranked fourth for agency subcomponents, with 83.5% employee satisfaction, up from 75.2% a year earlier. (The FDIC wasn't included in the 2009 survey.) The agency that houses, the OCC, the Treasury Department, ranked No. 12 among large agencies, with 68.4% employee satisfaction, versus 63.3% last year. Coming it No. 16 among agency subcomponents was the OTS, which Dodd-Frank is eliminating. It had 75.8% of employee satisfaction, up from 69.4% in 2009.
The Office of Personnel Management conducted the survey.
A Long Run Ends
Kathy Dick has left the OCC to join the financial services consulting firm Promontory Financial Group as a special adviser.
Dick spent 26 years at the OCC, most recently as deputy comptroller for the credit and market risk department and co-chair of the OCC's National Risk Committee.
"Kathy has been a standout at the OCC from her earliest days as a field examiner to her most recent experience as the agency's leading voice on credit and market risk," said Eugene A. Ludwig, Promontory's chief executive and a former comptroller of the currency. "She has been on the cutting edge of some of the most challenging issues banks face, including trading, derivatives and liquidity management. I was thrilled Kathy wanted to come to Promontory, because I know our clients will benefit immensely from her wise counsel."
Dick's first day was Sept. 7.
Spurred by CFPB
Mercedes Tunstall, formerly lead counsel for global marketing and deposits for Ally Financial Inc., has joined Ballard Spahr LLP's new consumer financial services group to help the law firm's clients comply with consumer laws and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Tunstall has served as counsel at the Federal Trade Commission and at several banks. Before her stint at Ally Financial, she was assistant general counsel at Bank of America, and earlier she was senior counsel at HSBC North America Holdings Inc.
