What's the best way to increase employee productivity, improve member service and ensure that everyone is taking advantage of all the functionality of your core system and applications? The answer is a continuing education program. An ongoing training program not only helps to ensure high performance, it is a boost to morale.

You've probably heard about the University of Iowa Community CU's recent attempt to change its name to Optiva. That story has been covered in this publication and others, and debated endlessly in blogs. Members were asked to vote on the name change and it barely passed. Then some members who hated the new name and didn't want to change the old one circulated a petition, got enough signatures for a new vote, and defeated the name change.

Nationally, we are experiencing total construction costs at an average of 8% higher than last year's costs. And while there has been a downturn in the residential market over the last few months, the total residential construction value is still 50% more than what it was just four years ago.

Let's hope it remains a conference name and not a metaphor.

ANACONDA, Mont. – The Southwest Montana FCU has acquired a 100-year-old bus garage and plans to raze the building, built in 1907 as a trolley station, and build a new headquarters at the site. The credit union plans to spend $3 million on the project, providing 9,000 square-feet of office space. The new building’s architecture will be historically sensitive and may include a historic presentation of the garage, which has housed buses since the 1950's.

PHILADELPHIA – Earl Laney, president and CEO of Philadelphia Inquirer & Daily News Employess FCU, retired March 30, after 50 years with the credit union movement. Laney started his career with the credit union in 1956 as a volunteer director while working for the Daily News. He became full-time manager in 1987 and has guided the credit union to its current $42 million in assets with nearly 4,000 members.

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – Power Financial CU, the southern Florida credit union giant formed by a merger with Pan Am Horizons FCU, announced that Henry Prior, its president and CEO for the last decade, retired March 31. Prior joined Power Financial, then known as FPL FCU, in 1996, when the credit union had $200 million in assets. The recent merger with Pan Am Horizons gives it $500 million in assets and 60,000 members through Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Prior, 64, had a 45 year career in banking, with jobs at Chase Federal Savings and Loan in Miami, Guardian Savings Bank and Consumers Savings Bank.

DALLAS – The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas said Friday it will pay members a first quarter dividend of 5.25% on their shares, up from 4.44% paid for the first quarter last year, and the same as the fourth quarter payout. The first quarter dividend was paid March 30. The Dallas Bank has $60 billion in assets and 900 members, including 35 credit unions.

NEW YORK – Municipal CU said its long-time CEO William Porter, who built the credit union into a $1.3 billion institution and led it through the turmoil surrounding Sept. 11, has retired. Porter stepped down Feb. 26 and was succeeded by Kam Wong, who has been a Municipal executive since 1988 and has been serving as president since August. Porter had a forty-year career in banking, which may have been remembered most for the days and months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center when hundreds of thousands of city workers relied on his credit union for emergency financial services. He was selected by the New York Banking Department in 1981 to take over Municipal CU, then a financially troubled $97 million credit union.

SEATTLE – The Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle reported it had turned around failed interest-rate bets to post healthy financials for its fourth quarter and fiscal 2006, a $6.2 million and $25.8 million net, respectively. That compares to a $3.3 million loss for last year’s fourth quarter, and a $1.7 million profit for fiscal 2006. The Bank, weighted down by poor interest-rate hedges, was forced by a 2005 supervisory agreement to scrap its secondary market program and return to its primary mission, providing low-cost mortgage funding to its bank and credit union members. The Bank ran into trouble in 2004 when it tried to hedge the mortgages it acquired under its Mortgage Partnership Finance program, running up losses of $15.6 million for 2004 and $26.5 million for 2005, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, But after scrapping the secondary market program, selling off most of the mortgages, and realizing losses on some of the instruments, the Seattle Bank was able to book a slight, $470,000 gain on its hedging instruments for 2006.

WASHINGTON – Thousands of runners fanned out through the city yesterday with the credit union brand affixed to their fronts as part of the annual Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile Run. The race–in which more than half the runners were members of area credit unions-raised $828,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network, the favorite credit union charity, which benefitted by more than $2.5 million since credit union’s began sponsoring it six years ago. More than 700 credit union volunteers from 51 credit unions helped out along the route through the Capital City’s streets. Both the women’s and men’s winners were world-class runners from Ethiopia. Teyba Erkesso, 24, won the women’s race in 51:44, believed to be a world record for women, and her countryman Tadasse Tola, 19, won the men’s portion in 46:01.

CRANFORD, N.J. – Three long-time directors of Synergy Financial, once known as Synergy FCU, have built up considerable retirement accounts from their service on the once-volunteer board. The three, Nancy Davis, Kenneth Kaspar and George Putvinski, earned $91,522, $91,891 and $90,634, respectively, last year for their service on the board of the ex-credit union, according to documents filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Each of the former volunteers, who helped convert the credit union to mutual savings bank, then to publicly owned bank, worked together at Schering Plough Corp. (Davis retired in 2002), the credit union’s former sponsor. Each has built up a million-dollar plus holding in the former credit union, with Davis owning 74,414 shares worth $1.2 million, Kaspar 80,999 shares worth $1.3 million, and Putvinski 73,215 shares worth $1.1 million. But those shares pale in value to the compensation earned by John Fiore, the president and CEO who led the exodus from credit union. Fiore earned $1.1 million in total compensation last year and has accumulated 392,115 Synergy shares worth more than $6 million since the ex-credit union went public just three years ago.

WASHINGTON – The banks are abandoning the largest cities and their minority communities in favor of the upper class and white neighborhoods, according to a new a new study. The study, by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, concludes that the drop-off in mainline banking services has forced residents inner city and minority consumers–the so-called underserved–to opt for high-priced check-cashers, payday lenders and pane shops for many of their financial services needs. The NCRC recommends that regulators pay closer attention to the financial service providers–unregulated, as well as regulated–in those communities, and strengthens the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to serve those communities. The study will pose a political dilemma at a time the banks want to force CRA on credit unions, based partly on a study issued by the same group claiming credit unions are not adequately serving the underserved.

PLANO, Texas – Last year’s conversion to mutual savings bank of Community CU produced a million-dollar payday for Gary Base, president and CEO of the biggest credit union convert ever, now known as Viewpoint Bank. Base, the long-time credit union executive and former chairman of the Texas CU Commission, earned $919,328 in benefits from the credit union-turned bank–a 34% raise from the year before when he headed a $1.4 billion credit union, according to a filing Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Base, who was recently elected director of the Texas Bankers Association, also earned more than $230,000 in stock profits in 2006 from his newly minted shares in the bank. Other top executives in the credit union convert also got hefty raises last year, including General Counsel Mark Hord, who earned $321,380, up 42% from the year before, and more than $35,000 in stock profits; and CFO Pattie McKee, who earned $295,000, also up 42%, and another $35,000 in stock profits. Shareholders in the credit union-convert will vote May 22 on a stock incentive plan that will provide $27.4 million in equity-based benefits for Base, Hord, McKee and other members of senior management.

WASHINGTON – Credit union insiders worried about the threat to credit unions coming from the bankers, who want to repeal the credit union tax exemption or convert healthy credit unions to banks, may miss the bigger threat coming from inside the credit union movement, not outside. The recent controversy surrounding the hostile takeover of Continental FCU by Wings Financial FCU, for example, was choreographed by long-time credit union advocates working at the Washington law firm of Venable LLP, who also designed the buyout of Nationwide FCU, paving the way for that $550 million credit union to be acquired by the Nationwide Bank. Both Bill Donovan, the chief lobbyist at NAFCU for 25 years who helped charter a credit union near his home, and Bruce Jolly, a former lawyer at CUNA and also a long-time credit union advocate, are being credited with developing the idea to pay credit union members for their equity, in order to dissipate some of the ill will surrounding some of these deals. In last year’s Nationwide conversion, the bank paid members of the credit union $79 million, an average of $2,000 each, helping tamper any dissent among members or from the organized credit union movement. Paul Parish, the president of Wings Financial, who has engaged Venable in his bid for Continental, acknowledged this in his approach that is being criticized by the credit union cognoscenti. “There is a value built up in Continental’s balance sheet that clearly belongs to Continental’s membership,” Parish told The Credit Union Journal, of Continental’s 17% capital, a $30 million cash hoard. “The excess belongs to them (the Continental members). We’re just looking for ways to (pay the excess to members).” Wings Financial has offered to pay each Continental member $200–a total of $5 million from Continental’s capital–if the merger goes through. “How many mergers are done where the difference is not paid out?” asked Parish

DALLAS – The Texas CU Foundation, which helped pass a mandatory financial education requirement for high school students, will join the National Endowment for Financial Education today to launch a statewide initiative to bring a financial literacy curriculum to the state’s schools.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Federal Home Loan bank of San Francisco reported yesterday it expects to pay a 5.18% dividend for the first quarter, up from the 5.03% paid in last year’s first quarter, but down from the 5.83% paid for the recently completed fourth quarter. The official payout won’t be set until next month when the Bank completes its books for the first quarter. The dividend will be paid to the San Francisco Bank’s 340 member institutions, including 35 credit unions.

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. – Global Axcess Corp., an independent operator of almost 4,400 ATMs, reported yesterday that it eked into the black to the tune of $14,000 in profits for the fourth quarter, but sill lost $4.9 million for its fiscal 2006. That’s up from a $723,000 loss for 2005. Losses for 2006 included more than $3 million in impairment of assets charges, and $650,000 for legal expenses, including $450,000 to settle a shareholder suit. The company, which operates co-branded ATMs for credit unions and community banks under its Nationwide Money Services unit, reported a 4.5% rise in fourth quarter revenues, and a 10% rise for 2006, to $21.4 million.

SAN ANTONIO – Security Service FCU announced yesterday it has chosen CUNA Mutual Group’s direct marketing program, MemberCONNECT, to deliver auto and homeowners insurance to its 600,000 members. MemberCONNECT helps credit unions identify and select credit union members and targets them for direct marketing of insurance products. Credit union members do not receive call calls. MemberCONNECT manages direct insurance programs for more than 4,100 credit unions. Security Service FCU is the nation’s 11th largest credit union, with almost $4 billion in assets.

BRIGHTON, Mich. – A former branch manager for Huron River Area CU was charged with a fake loan scam that siphoned about $100,000 from the credit union’s branch here. Jason Dodge, 31, allegedly took out fake loans in members’ names to cover up the fund he stole since the start of the year, police said. Dodge is accused of taking cash from the vault, then creating phony loans to cover the theft. The alleged scheme was uncovered by auditors for the credit union, which is in conservatorship.