Healthy Corporate Governance?

Does your credit union have a healthy corporate governance?

Sarah Moore, Administrator for the Alabama Credit Union Administration, posed the following questions in a November 9 presentation that should be addressed by members of a credit union's Board and supervisory committee regarding healthy corporate governance practices.

• Is the Board performing an evaluation of themselves?
• Does the Board have goals and metrics by which to evaluate the Board performance?
• Does the Board review the mission statement of the credit union annually?
• Do the members of the Board reflect the member base of the credit union, specifically race, gender, age, employer (particularly for SEG groups)?
• Are Board members rewarding themselves through international or luxury training trips or other perks not available to other members of the credit union?
• Are committees, other than Supervisory Committee, acting with specific authority from the board?
• Are committee minutes included in Board packages each month?
• Are committee chairs reporting substantive information to the Board? If there is a “no report” from a committee chair, why?
• Do the bylaws contain term limits for Board members and Supervisory Committee members?
• Do the bylaws contain an age limit in order to run for another term of office?
• Is the Board actively soliciting and recruiting new Board and committee members to run for office?
• Are the bylaws of the credit union up to date with laws and regulations?
• Is the Supervisory Committee actively engaged in audits of the activities of the credit union?
• Is the Supervisory Committee serving as a check on the Board of Directors?
• Are the Board and Supervisory committee reviewing items in enough detail to be an independent check on management?
• Does the Board have a strong conflict of interest policy? Is the policy being adhered to and who is checking to ensure that the policy is adhered to?
• Do Board and Supervisory Committee members maintain their personal finances in good order?

I suspect the Administrator felt the need to discuss these corporate governance issues, because these issues were identified during recent examinations.

Below is a link to her presentation.

View presentation.