2 Nov 2026
NCUA Drops Office-by-Office Detail From Its 2027 Budget
www.marktreichel.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-treichel/
NCUA has released its 2027 staff draft budget, and this is Mark Treichel's first take: what it is, what changed, and what's missing. It's a two-year budget, 2027 and 2028, so NCUA can keep operating if it doesn't have a full board or can't get a vote. Mark sets the 2028 figures aside to keep it simple.
Headline numbers
• Budget just over $325 million, up 2.9% — $9.2 million over the 2026 approved amount. That increase is essentially pay: NCUA is required to maintain comparability with the other banking regulators and has a union contract it has to live up to, and it typically pays non-union staff similarly.
• 972 full-time equivalents (FTEs), up five from last year and down 23% from the peak of 1,255 in the 2025 budget, after the buyouts.
• Overhead transfer rate (OTR) of 62% — a number NASCUS will comment on.
• Operating fee down 49 basis points, after a large drop last year tied to the reorganization and buyouts.
• Operating budget up 8.2%: pay and benefits and contracted services up, travel down a little, rent, communications, utilities, and administrative up a little.
• Roughly 70% paid by federal credit unions through the operating fee and their share of the OTR; roughly 30% by state charters, for insurance-related exam work.
Also in this episode
• Why calling it a "staff draft" is a little funny, and why the budget used to be Mark's Super Bowl as NCUA Executive Director.
• The reorganization: target date now December 2027; prioritize statutory and most critical work, consolidate units with like functions, raise the supervisor-to-employee ratio, use technology for efficiency. The Office of the Chief Economist has been rolled into the Office of Examination and Insurance (E&I). About $1 million of a $16 million reorganization fund was spent.
• The Office of National Examinations and Supervision (ONES): the draft doesn't say what's happening. ONES' budget is down 1.2%; the large credit union analytic tool, paid from the insurance fund, is up 7.2%, mostly tied to stress testing.
• AI becomes SI: $4.3 million earmarked for superintelligence/AI after Executive Order 14434. "It's a name, it's not a mandate." Some of the five new positions go to AI, paired with a zero-trust cybersecurity push. The artist formerly known as Prince, and the time "lump sum" became "pay policy."
• Questions the draft doesn't answer: will examiners use AI and credit union data in exams; what governance and model risk controls apply; how results are explained to credit unions; which vendors, and where the data goes.
• New initiatives: the GENIUS Act and stablecoin issuers, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, and possibly a new position — Mark's words, not NCUA's, likely on the stablecoin side. Deregulation year two turns to more complex rules; Mark guesses commercial lending and risk-based capital, and "time will tell."
• Line items: $300K to digitize chartering; cybersecurity $4.7 million including a $3 million firewall refresh; CDRLF grant system $605K; e-discovery $300K; board priorities $500K; Asset Management and Assistance Center (AMAC) liquidation tracking tool $106K, charged directly to the Share Insurance Fund.
• Material loss reviews: Jackson Area Federal Credit Union could be a large one. MLRs appear once in the draft, in the audit and financial management support category (4.4% of contracts, about $3.2 million). The inspector general's budget rises from 4.1 to 4.8 — Mark's guess is contracting, potentially tied to MLRs.
• What's missing: the draft has gone from a peak of 109 pages in 2021 to 26. What came out, year by year — and in 2027, positions by office and per-office line items for pay, travel, rent, admin, and contracts.
• Three possible reasons the office detail is gone, two good and one bad — and why Mark doesn't think it's the bad one.
• Why Congress required a public draft, what the law says, the fair counterpoints, and what to watch and ask for. Mark plans a follow-up after the hearing.
