Monthly board meetings: Necessary or burdensome?

In January of 2023, the House passed the Credit Union Board Modernization Bill, which aims to reduce the number of required board meetings from monthly to six times annually and at least once per fiscal quarter.

This news was met with praise and support from credit union groups and advocates who claimed that monthly board meetings were taxing on credit unions and overly burdensome. They argued that they not only took away time and resources from serving members but they were costly and required too much manpower. They saw this long-awaited modernization act as a relief for smaller credit unions in particular who claimed to struggle with current board requirements and saw them as unfairly taxing on them.

Different perspectives on the issue

While all of the above may be true, the move certainly raises a few questions. Reducing board meetings by half is not an insignificant change. What are the potential ramifications of a credit union board that is absent for half the year? What does it say about a credit union that desires its board to meet less? Is this truly a cause for concern?

Or are the supporters of the new bill right? Have the monthly board meetings become repetitive and unnecessary? Have they simply become more of a matter of routine than a matter of consequence? Do they truly take away resources from the member-owners they serve daily? Are there more effective and efficient ways to tackle credit union objectives?

 

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