NAFCU: Treasury Department is not ‘forthright’ about CDFI backlog

The Community Development Financial Institutions program has a serious backlog of applications, and the Treasury Department is failing to be forthright about it with credit unions waiting for their applications to be reviewed, Ann C. Kossachev, vice president of regulatory affairs at the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions charged Wednesday.

“NAFCU and credit union CDFI applicants are cognizant of constraints on the CDFI Fund’s resources; however, the application process as it currently exists is opaque and byzantine,” Kossachev wrote in a letter to Michelle Dickens, program manager in the CDFI Fund’s Office of Certification, Compliance Monitoring and Evaluation.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have been pushing for increased funding for the CDFI program and witnesses recently told a House subcommittee that a funding boost must be accompanied by an increase in appropriations for program administration.

Kossachev wrote that as long as the application backlog remains, Treasury Department officials should openly communicate with applicants about the delays and provide regular updates, particularly as applicants reach the 90-day timeline within which the CDFI normally renders a decision.

 

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