Legislature's Budget Bill Attacks
Member-Owned Cooperative Businesses:
Credit Unions Members At Risk
MADISON, Wis. (June 17, 2011) – Republicans in the State Legislature adopted an amendment to the state budget bill in an attempt to quell a growing concern over a credit union conversion provision. The amendment would require two additional notices prior to a membership vote on a conversion proposal. However, the amendment does not address nine other major deficiencies of the proposal raised by Cooperative Network and others.
The policy provision was first inserted into the budget by the Joint Finance Committee without the opportunity for public debate and sells short the interests of credit union members by stripping away existing provisions that are in place to protect credit union members from unscrupulous interests seeking to grab their ownership in their local credit union.
“A bipartisan group of senators and representatives were committed to fixing this, but were unfortunately were in the minority. We regret the Legislature is apparently more concerned about big for-profit banks than they are with the more than 2.2 million citizens of Wisconsin who are members of nonprofit credit unions,” said Bill Oemichen, President & CEO of Cooperative Network.
The Legislature’s action is certainly a setback to the cooperative community’s united effort against the conversion provision, but Oemichen said that “cooperatives will push hard for a veto from Governor Walker.”
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