Monday, November 23, 2009

Rep. Marcus Oshiro calls for the rescinding of education budget restrictions

An opinion written by House Finance Chairman Marcus Oshiro was published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, regarding the education budget.

Read the opinion here.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Furloughs, furloughs, furloughs

The links below will take you to all furlough information and calendars.


State furlough calendars & information

Department of Education furlough calendar

Judiciary furlough calendar

21 day fix

From CUNA News Now 11/10/09:

WASHINGTON (11/10/09)--Even before President Barack Obama signed the CARD Act Technical Corrections Act (H.R. 3606) into law on Friday, staff from the Federal Reserve had confirmed with the Credit Union National Association that Fed staff will include this change in the CARD Act final rule that will be issued by the end of the year, or January at the latest.

These rules will address the provisions that were effective as of Aug. 20 and that will be effective as of Feb. 22, 2010.

Fed attorney Ben Olson also indicated that the Fed staff has no objection to the correction, telling CUNA Senior Assistant General Counsel Jeff Bloch that the correction "makes a lot of sense."

The CARD Act change fixes portions of the act that implied that a 21-day late notice requirement applied to all open-end credit by clearly stating that late-notice provisions apply to credit cards only.

CUNA consistently argued that lawmakers had always intended to apply the provision to credit cards only, and worked closely with lawmakers and their staffs to inform them that the CARD Act drafting error prevented credit unions from granting biweekly payment plans or sending consolidated billing statements to their members and would force them to change payment due dates for members that had previously chosen due dates based on their specific financial circumstance.

CUNA President/CEO Dan Mica hailed the quick and decisive work by the House, Senate, and President, saying that the to-be-enacted legislation "gives credit unions the opportunity to go back to doing what they do best: Serving their members with affordable and needed financial services."

Use the resource link below for comprehensive compliance information about "un-complying" with the 21-day requirement now that the fix has been enacted.

Monday, November 9, 2009

CARD Act fix & homeowner tax credit

Message from Dan Mica:

Great news to end the week: President Obama today signed into law H.R. 3606, the CARD Act Technical Corrections Act, which fixes the law so that the 21-day notice period will apply only to credit cards rather than to open-end credit in general.

The President also signed legislation extending the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit that was set to expire at the end of the month. That bill also creates a new $6,500 tax credit for current homeowners who purchase a new home between December 1, 2009 and April 30, 2010.

On the credit card fix, this is one of the most important pieces of legislation for credit unions to come out of Congress this year. As you know, credit unions had been scrambling to meet the law’s provisions on open-end loans – even though the law was never meant to cover those loans.

By signing the law, the President gives credit unions the opportunity to go back to doing what they do best: Serving their members with affordable and needed financial services. Again, our thanks to all of the leagues and the many credit unions that worked to convince House and Senate leaders to pass this fix into law. Without your efforts, credit unions would still be reeling from the unintended consequences of this law.

We know credit unions have some questions about “un-complying” with the 21-day requirement now that the fix has been enacted. For those who may have missed it, we ran an excellent article in News Now earlier this week addressing compliance questions. You can find it at the link below:

http://cuna.org/newsnow/archive/list.php?date=103009#43346