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Happy New Year, everyone! As I write this, we are enjoying an open winter with highs approaching 50 degrees this week. What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, my quarter-mile driveway and turn-around felt more like 5 miles and looked more like a snow tunnel than a paved driveway. Absent the cold snap a couple weeks ago, it’s been a very mild winter. I hope I haven’t jinxed it by commenting too soon as there’s plenty of winter left.

ICBND Chairman Jason Johnson, in his Chairman’s Remarks on the previous page, commented about the ongoing battles at federal level and the upcoming ICBA Convention (March 14-17) and the ICBA Capital Summit (April 28 – May 1). These are great events to network with your counterparts across the country and advocate for community banking in Washington, DC.

Closer to home, we are proud of the calendar of events that Jessie and Lindsay have assembled for 2024. If you’ve not already received them, you will be getting “Save the Date” postcards for our 2024 educational events and a separate postcard for the 56th Annual ICBND Convention. A summary of those events is as follows:

  • January 30-31 Front-Line Banking Certification, Virtual
  • March 1 Emerging Leaders – Winter Session, Grand Forks
  • February 23 Community Bankers for Compliance – Reg. Update, Virtual
  • April 16-17 Community Bankers for Compliance – Spring Session, Bismarck
  • May 1-2 Women in Community Banking Summit, Bismarck
  • May 10 Community Bankers for Compliance – Reg. Update, Virtual
  • May 22 FDIC Directors College, Bismarck
  • June 10-14 ICBND School of Agriculture Lending, Bismarck
  • June 25-26 Emerging Leaders – Summer Session, Medora
  • August 13-14 ICBND 56th Annual Convention, Bismarck
  • August 16 Community Bankers for Compliance, Reg. Update, Virtual
  • September 24-25 Emerging Leaders – Fall Session, Jamestown
  • October 1 Policies & Procedures Session, Bismarck
  • October 2 Fraud Symposium, Bismarck
  • October 15-16 Community Bankers for Compliance – Fall Session, Bismarck
  • November 8 Community Bankers for Compliance – Reg. Update, Virtual
  • Ongoing Education Webinars Powered by FinEd, Virtual

We appreciate your support of past events and are hopeful to see you and your coworkers at some of these exciting and informative upcoming events.

Keep the faith through the rest of the winter and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Barry

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I hope this message finds you recovering from the Thanksgiving holiday. Typically, it’s my favorite holiday involving good food, family, friends, and football. Stacey and I had a quiet one, however, this year as two of our daughters, our sons-in-law, and their kids were with the in-laws. So, we put up Christmas decorations (well…Stacey did), relaxed and dined on a typical Thanksgiving staple - lasagna! We’re planning our revenge however by ruining our four grandkids (with another on the way) at Christmas!

As I look back on 2023, I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to represent you all and the interests of community banking in North Dakota and nationally. And I’m proud of our accomplishments this past year at the 68th Assembly of the North Dakota Legislature.

During the Regular Session, your association, which exclusively represents the interests of community banking, fared well. ICBND and especially its member bankers were instrumental in the defeat of the retail lobby’s efforts to limit interchange fees. Similarly, we squashed the credit unions’ aggressive and expensive campaign to expand their fields of membership. And we were also successful in defeating the most problematic of the anti-ESG bills.

At the federal level, the FDIC recently ruled (3-2 vote) that community banks with less than $5 billion in uninsured deposits will be exempt from its special assessment to replenish the Deposit Insurance Fund due to the failures of SVB and Signature Bank. This will rightfully save community banks nearly $3 billion over the next two years. Absent the advocacy and credibility of community bankers and their associations, I suspect there would have been a different result.

Moving forward, I’m thankful for the direction that your ICBND and ICB Services Boards of Directors provide us as we advocate for the best interests of community banking. I appreciate the time and effort that these dedicated individuals provide for the betterment of community banking.

Finally, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Until next time,

Barry

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I hope you are enjoying a glorious fall in North Dakota. This is easily my favorite time of year. I hope we can hold onto it into November! Wishful thinking…I know.

Just this afternoon, news broke that the North Dakota Supreme Court struck down a key budget bill – that of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This is the funding bill for much of state government and was the last bill to be finalized during the most recent Legislative Session. And it often gathers other “cats and dogs” that aren’t necessarily budgetary in nature (i.e. last chance to impute policy issues). Therein lies the rub, at least for the board overseeing North Dakota’s government retirement plans. The OMB bill included a change that increased the number of lawmakers who sit on the board from two to four. The board opposed this and challenged its constitutionality. Given the court’s ruling, the Legislature will need to convene. They could reconvene using the five days they saved from the 80-day constitutional limit. Or Governor Burgum could call a special session. Either way, it will have to be quick! One just never knows what might crop up on an otherwise run-of-the-mill Thursday!

While we’re already into the last quarter of the year, please keep in mind that we still have a couple very timely educational sessions remaining on the 2023 calendar including “Community Bankers for Compliance Fall Regulatory 2-Day Seminar” on October 17-18 and the “Real Estate Construction Lending Workshop” on October 25-26 which is back by popular demand. We’re also in the planning stages of some new and exciting educational offerings for 2024 so stay tuned!

Until next time,

Barry

The 68th Legislative Assembly of the North Dakota Legislature wrapped up in the wee hours of Sunday morning, April 30th which marked the 75th Legislative Day of the session saving five days during the interim if there’s a need to reconvene. While we didn’t get everything we wanted from this session, independent community banking fared well particularly given our defeat of limitations on interchange fees and squashing the credit unions’ aggressive and expensive campaign to expand their fields of membership! I won’t belabor this message with details from the session as you’re probably just starting to recover from my weekly legislative updates the first four months of the year! Moving forward, we are beyond pleased to announce ICBND’s 55th Annual Convention and Exposition which carries the theme “Community Banks: Your Country Needs You”. How appropriate is that given what’s happened in the banking world as of late? Your Convention Committee nailed it with this theme. Please mark your calendars for August 6-8 and note the change back to a Sunday evening through Tuesday format. The ICBND Convention is a tremendous opportunity to get together again with our friends and colleagues to enjoy a fun and informative celebration of community banking in the great state of North Dakota. And don’t forget to pack your patriotic attire for the theme party to be held Monday evening. As always, there’s sure to be some interesting ensembles! I hope you all have a great summer and I look forward to seeing you in Bismarck on August 6- 8!

Barry

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Happy April, everyone! It’s supposed to be spring but the forecast looks like we may be in the middle of another winter storm about the time this newsletter hits your inbox. Good grief! Enough already!

You’re probably tired of hearing from me about the 68th Assembly of the North Dakota Legislature. Not many weeks have gone by when I haven’t implored members to reach out to their legislators requesting they vote with us on one issue or another. In my limited tenure with ICBND, this has easily been the busiest as it relates to bills affecting community banking. We’ve been effective in turning back, or amending to satisfaction, most of the problematic bills. Unfortunately, we’re not even close to being done. In fact, we are currently in the throws of possibly the most problematic proposed North Dakota legislation in the past decade as it relates to community banking.
 
That bill is Senate Bill 2266. It was brought by the credit unions and originally sought to gut the field of membership rules in Century Code by allowing pretty much unfettered expansion. As amended in the
Senate, it is still extremely problematic as it seeks to expand the field of membership of any credit union main office to 125 miles from the current 75-mile radius. That’s a near tripling of the service area of every state-chartered credit union – there are 19 of them. It passed by one vote in the Senate. We need it to fail in the House and we need your help to do that. The bill was heard in the House Industry, Business and Labor Committee yesterday. It will be the subject of Committee work again the week of April 3rd. It could hit the House floor for vote as early as late that same week or the week of April 10. Please contact your Representatives from the following roster ND House of Representatives and ask them to vote “NO” on SB 2266!
 
Happy shoveling,
 
Barry

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