[00:00:00] Scott: Hey everyone. Today on the podcast, we're going to be talking at the end of an election cycle, the major turnover that we've had in the state government and the federal government level how this impacts credit unions and to do so we've got a member of our advocacy committee joining us.

We're going to talk about how the rare, but large deficit in the state of Washington may impact. Funding for for certain groups some tax cuts that are expiring and how all of these new legislators, members of of government are going to have to be evaluating all those things and how the advocacy of a credit union is the potential impact that could help maintain nonprofit tax statuses, as well as the community involvement and funding.

As well as some legislature that might change education requirements for graduating high school students to include financial literacy. Anyways, let's jump into it.

Hi everybody. And welcome to another episode of dollars and cents Hapo community credit unions, financial literacy podcast today on the episode Mary Lou Martinez a member of the Hapo community credit union advocacy team. And we are here today not to talk. Advocacy in general, but more specifically, we're going to dive a little bit deeper into it today.

Talking about some current events because there's a lot of them. I was looking at the email that you sent over with some of the topics and, Oh boy, we've got a lot of stuff to talk about here. Let's start with probably the biggest situation in the state of Washington first, but also across the nation at the federal level.

We have had a pretty major change in government positions and officials across the board. What how does that impact what you guys do in the advocacy committee? 

[00:01:53] Marylou: We are fortunate to have great relationships with Go West and they are a foundation that strictly focuses on credit union advocacy.

We use them as a tool to help educate and be informed on what's going on in the state and the legislative branch Yes, just like you mentioned, our fellow friends at Go West sent us a very long list of initiatives that are going on and from what I've gathered from it, it is an opportunity to educate our legislators to continue to push for advocacy within our credit unions because we are not the same as banks, so we shouldn't miss it.

be taxed the same. 

[00:02:31] Scott: And one of the points that came up in that email was that there are people and other entities that are pushing to adjust the taxation situation on credit unions, which if I'm not mistaken, is something that has been done. pretty regularly occurring. So we're like credit unions are pretty regularly having to advocate and fight for their nonprofit status.

Correct. 

[00:02:56] Marylou: Yeah. Yep. And especially with, as you mentioned that large deficit in the state of Washington it is going to be critical that we continue to advocate for that because they're going to have to find ways of cutting and also how to increase taxes. So especially because they see, Oh, credit unions, they're, everywhere and they're making money and yet they're not being taxed as much as we are, but we're also giving back to our communities.

Our members are shareholders. We don't have a board of that profits off of the gains. We just give it right back into the community. Yeah. 

[00:03:33] Scott: Which is part of the credit union mission in general, people helping people. The ability to do things like that the quote unquote profit that is coming in is then turned around to help.

provide lower rates on lending products and other items like that. You did mention that in the email, there is a bit about how there is a huge deficiency in the Washington state budget. I think it was listed as somewhere between 10 and 14 billion over the next four years. Now, not 10. 10 to 14 billion each year, but over those four years.

So three ish, give or take a couple billion. 

[00:04:08] Marylou: I had to reread that. I was like, wait, is that correct? Okay. Wow. That's start dealing 

[00:04:13] Scott: with with monetary numbers on a statewide or a nationwide scale, and you start shifting from M's to B's and probably up to T's eventually B. One of the pieces that was in there and you mentioned tax cuts as well as raising of taxes and then spending cuts because if you need to balance a budget, you get either a make more money, so raising taxes for revenue or be stopped spending as much a.

k. a. cutting spending. We are sitting at a point with this new government grouping where we have a number of tax cuts on the books that I believe are. expiring or at a point of being re evaluated. Yes. So at this point in time, we're thinking that if those go away, obviously those cuts gone, those taxes are going to go up.

[00:05:00] Marylou: Yeah. 

[00:05:01] Scott: Now, how much of those are you up to speed with on what those tax cuts are? 

[00:05:08] Marylou: I'm not too familiar with the 2017 Tax cut. I just know that it expires and it is up for reevaluation. And was it yeah. 

[00:05:20] Scott: In the state of Washington, I know we've got four new Yeah. Big positions. 

Yep.

That got changed. Our attorney General is now the governor. Yes. Which means we've got a new governor. Yep. It means we also have a new Attorney General. . And it looks like the we'll be having a new lands commissioner and insurance commissioner coming on board. So that's going to be a lot of budgetary factors there.

They're going to be looking at a number of different policies including those 2017 tax cuts trying to decide what they want to keep in place and what they want to let expire, AKA bring that state revenue back up at the expense of everybody else around. And then, of course, with budget cuts we're talking how much money is going to be going out to other situations.

In that email that we got trying to remember what they had mentioned as far as what was at risk of being cut that there were concerns over. Do you remember off the top of your head what those were? 

[00:06:15] Marylou: I think one of them was K through 12 education, which was one that, probably needs to get some attention to it's because prices have gone up and there's more increases in expenses that's something that is going to have to be in a priority for the state to reevaluate and either raise more expenses.

More income or cut some state programs which I don't know how much of it would be in education, but state programs in general are going to have to be cut and reevaluated. 

[00:06:47] Scott: Yeah. Which means that we're looking at a very interesting next couple of years, as far as if we've grown used to certain services being available, those ones might not be there anymore, either up to private funding at this point, if they want to continue or maybe just going away.

As I know when we talk on the education side of things, one of the, one of the bits that was out there was legislation on financial literacy as a requirement in the state of Washington for education or a graduation requirement from high school. I remember when I went through high school here long ago that we did have at least a consumer economics course that we were required to take.

I don't know what level of course they're looking at to implement, but I do know that I regularly see on social media, I wish they taught that in high school but I feel like a lot of those same people would probably be mad about having to take the class as a requirement. I know. 

[00:07:43] Marylou: Yeah. And I think that's the biggest piece about it.

There is a big discrepancy of people, especially like being in high school and then becoming an adult. There's so many tools that we didn't learn in high school and becoming an adult, you don't know anything about credit. You don't know anything about, maybe a little bit about a checking account and a savings account.

You don't. Know what a mortgage is. You don't know what a commercial loan is. You don't, you can literally walk around and not know Oh, funding, this was, funded by, a credit union or it was funded by a bank. There's just so many things you don't really learn. And. And I see it a lot at least in the consumer loan side where you can tell certain borrowers that are, like, have a little bit more, better understanding of how credit works.

They put cash down. They ha they've. paid everything on their credit cards and paid every auto note and have a mortgage. Sometimes they have two mortgages. They're very rate conscious. And unfortunately not everyone is familiar with that and they could. Potentially make bad decisions when it comes to credit because they just don't know.

And it's 

[00:08:55] Scott: not like the information isn't out there. I know we do a lot with at Happo with financial education financial coaching. That's actually one of those things that we've talked about a number of times on the podcast. Anybody that's out there listening if any of the stuff that Mary Lou mentioned there is striking a chord and you're like, I don't know what that means.

Give us a call. Set up an appointment with a financial coach. They're happy to go through those type of things to provide that education. But in this particular case, trying to provide that education to kids before they get out into the adult world and hopefully give them a little bit more of a foundation.

Honestly speaking, I know that when I did the consumer economics bit in high school going through it I came out with a decent amount more knowledge than other people that I know nowadays who apparently didn't have that. Do we know off the top of our heads when that education requirement went away?

I don't want to date myself too much here, but I want to say it was probably early two thousands that. education requirement might have disappeared from the curriculums. 

[00:09:56] Marylou: Yeah, it could have been. I'm, I can't remember at the top of my head. I just know that when I was growing up, we might've taken a financial literacy class, but I honestly can't even remember any of what we learned there.

And it could be also that I was a teenager and thought I, it's not something that registers to me, but Now that I'm an adult, I understand how valuable that is, and credit union advocacy to, at least to express the importance of that in legislation stems from wanting to create a better community where everyone understand, or more people will be more Equipped to make better decisions when it comes to money or even the way money works.

I don't think Unless you like thankfully we have you know Some people have good parents that will teach them all of that and they will Be set up, you know putting them as an authorized user You know Here's a 

[00:10:58] Scott: card. You can go use this. This is what it means to do. Unlike my nephew who unfortunately I found out recently ran up a couple hundred dollar bill on their steam account.

Mom and dad apparently authorized him to buy. something once and he did not understand that when he was buying that next skin, that it was charging that card. It was just, yes, I want this. And here you go. They went and look at a couple of bank statements. They were like, Oh where'd that 500 go?

It adds up very quickly. And if you don't understand, the usages of those things then yeah, bad mistakes can be made. Luckily, I think that this financial education for him came at a point where it isn't so much of a hill to climb, but hopefully it, it leaves a lasting memory of how to properly use these and not not get too much trouble from mom and dad on that side.

[00:11:48] Marylou: Yep. Yep. And honestly, When I was 18 years old, I was working at the food court and I was 18 and I was like, Oh, I'm old enough to go apply for a credit card. Let me go apply for a credit card. And it was during my lunch break. I went to buckle and I was like, Oh let me apply for a credit card. And I got denied.

And I couldn't understand why I got denied. I'm 18. I have a job, but I've only been at the job for three months and I make 800 bucks a month. So in my eyes, I was like, I'm old enough to get a credit card, but yeah, I got declined. Now that I'm an underwriter, I'm like, wow, no wonder I would have declined her too.

[00:12:23] Scott: She doesn't 

[00:12:23] Marylou: have the credit for it. And that is 

[00:12:25] Scott: absolutely one of those things that people should be getting from this financial literacy course. the evaluations that are made, the credit score, how you build that up, how you make yourself look good on, on one of those talking about like credit mixes.

Honestly we did an episode not too long ago where we talked about credit mix and I was like, Oh, they check different things depending on what you're getting your score pulled for. Okay. That's news to me. I knew that everything mattered into the credit score, just not that they looked at it all differently, depending on.

what you're even applying for. So car loan, mortgage, credit card, all those things. 

[00:13:01] Marylou: Yeah. And I feel like it also teaches like how to have delayed gratification, keeping your score up. Even if I was in high school and I would have known a little bit of what I know now, I probably would have made better decisions.

And I'll have to learn the hard way, maybe like your nephew, he can't learn the hard way, but I'm pretty sure now He's going to understand. Yeah, exactly. 

[00:13:24] Scott: Sometimes the hard lesson is the best one. When you learn it, you're not going to make that mistake a second time, but I guarantee most people that learn it that way.

Wish they had learned it a different way. Yes. 

[00:13:34] Marylou: And that's the great thing about, this was something that, that go West and credit unions are very passionate about when it comes to pushing that, that financial literacy requirement in high school because. We've seen it change lives for certain students that did take one and they were that like they took different paths or they learned these skills that they may have not learned at home.

So especially when you look at, different demographics, it could be life changing, even though maybe they didn't come up knowing all of that and come from rougher areas because they got that knowledge. They become adults and they're a lot more equipped to set themselves up for success and then also set up their families for success.

[00:14:19] Scott: Yeah, I think that the education side of things is one of those that I feel like everybody should be passionate about because having people that are just more knowledgeable on these things is going to make everybody's life just a little bit easier, I would assume. One of the other things that I know has been happening from the email that we got is the Legislation to try and add additional taxes onto loans that are being acquired by credit unions from banks.

For those people out there that don't know how this works loans can be bought and sold From one institution to another, if you've got a mortgage out there and you have realized that, oh, it was with Flagstar, now it's with Mr. Cooper, and now it's off to specialized loan servicing or any of your loan is being sold that's the bottom line.

That's how that works. And then you just have a new processor. So in this particular case loans being transferred as a book of assets, most likely, or possibly through an acquisition. It's I believe public out there now that Hapo is in the process of acquiring Community First Bank. Now, that would be assuming assets are coming over.

I don't know the full details of these things, but that would be an acquisition of loans that they're proposing to add additional taxes on top of. I can't imagine that in a trickle down type of a world that those fees or taxes aren't going to end up. impacting loan rates across the board for those acquired loans.

What is the advocacy Group doing as far as those type of situations. I know that's got to be a high priority for the group 

[00:15:56] Marylou: yes, it is a very high priority and Joe who's In charge of that to stress the importance of not taxing to the legislators it is We are, we don't operate like the banks, although there were acquiring those loans we still shouldn't be taxed on that because of how we Do business, yeah, 

[00:16:19] Scott: the tax status of a for profit versus a not for profit, whether it's in a financial industry or any other sort of industry needs to be maintained in some way, shape or 

[00:16:31] Marylou: form.

Yeah, because it's not like we're gonna, we're gonna inherit the same fees and the same. rates like we're still going to operate as Happo and how we like to offer better rates for our members and making it a little bit more streamlined process as for banks their priority is to make money. That is definitely on, on Priority because it's not like we're gonna all of a sudden become a bank.

Yeah, 

[00:16:56] Scott: The goal being to provide Low rate loans and services low fee based services to membership Notwithstanding being that like, Hey, if we get these extra taxes, that's going to trickle down to the members themselves. And then we're going to be the ones that they're probably mad at, as opposed to the taxation from the state level.

Because it's usually the first person that you see in a line like that, that, that gets the the gruff commentary if you will, 

You mentioned Joe I believe he will be co chairing the state treasurer's financial education legislation. So all that financial education stuff that we were chatting about earlier, he is going to be paving the way and doing a lot of work with that as well.

[00:17:42] Marylou: Yep. He's on the front lines. 

[00:17:46] Scott: Now coming up, I know in the near ish future, there is an event coming up February, I believe February 11th credit union day at the Capitol. 

[00:17:56] Marylou: Yes. 

[00:17:57] Scott: Now I hear that you have been there before. 

[00:17:59] Marylou: Yes. I went last year. It was my first year going and I was about 33 weeks pregnant and I was just.

Stubborn, I wanted to go, I wanted to experience that and being able to sit down with legislators to come together with other credit unions it was a really amazing experience to witness that just because we don't, we think it's just us here at HAPO that are passionate about advocacy, we're passionate about what we do and, sharing the good news of all the amazing things we do as a credit union it's just a different.

Feeling and experience to go and get to see and witness like all the other credit union advocates was really cool to see and getting to hear from the CEO of go West Adam or Joe Adam Meck was there. And then Jordan, who's also he, I think he's the ABP of grassroots. Okay. So he was there as well.

So all of the. Pretty much like all of the leadership from go west was there and getting to meet them and hearing their stories and their passion. That was really awesome. And then also getting to share our credit union stories to the legislators was also great because a lot of them, they know of credit unions they know of banks, but I think it's different experience when you get to voice like what it is that you do.

Getting to see the community impact from. What we do on the day to day basis. I think that is always good to see. And then also they're going through a hundred and five day 

[00:19:29] Scott: yeah, long legislative session coming up during that stretch. 

[00:19:34] Marylou: So it's very critical for us to, put the names in the faces getting to meet them and, maybe that will sway them from going from one direction to another, but Yeah just being able to educate them personally, putting a name to a face it's very informative and also like they appreciate it.

Like they the legislators are like really Excited to get to see what we have to say as and then we are just as excited getting to share 

[00:20:01] Scott: Yeah that 105 day session that's going to be the first very long session that I think is starting early january early mid january so that february 11th time frame is about a third of the way into it And all of these new positions that we talked about earlier in the podcast the new governor, the new AG, et cetera, et cetera, all the new statewide legislature legislators jumping in, they're going to be reevaluating all of these these potential tax cut expirations, the budget that's going to be coming around that they're going to have to balance because the state is obligated to have a balanced budget, unlike the federal government.

Who can run on a deficit? We have to have a balanced budget. So they're going to be making a lot of those tough decisions right then being able to get their ear in the middle of that is, is a pretty big deal. And like you mentioned they, they know that credit unions exist, but. Like a lot of listeners out there on until you've started to hear the stories and see the difference.

I know growing up, I didn't know the difference between a credit union and a bank. I just thought that they had different names, like a corporation versus a business. You're like, Oh what's the big difference there? Franchise versus a retail outlet store. Okay, cool. They have different names.

I'm sure that means something, but I never actually cared. Learned a whole lot more about it especially since starting working here. But yeah, being able to take that information to them yeah, we're going to argue, you're going to be arguing for us on our tax our nonprofit tax status, but you don't know.

Who we are, what we are, how we're different, why we should be treated differently. So being able to get in front of them to provide that face to face invaluable who all is able to go to an event like this? Since this one is listed as credit union day, I'm assuming that the general public probably not showing up for that.

[00:21:54] Marylou: I don't know. I don't think it was general public. I think it was just credit union employees that did make it there. And at least for Hapo they, I think they let every person that, that signed up for it go. I don't know how it'll be this year, but we'll have one person at least over there.

Oh, I don't know. We don't know that information until like maybe a month. 

[00:22:21] Scott: So we'll wait until the new year and see who, who gets to to make the trek for us. Here at Hapo headquarters, that's just cross the mountains. So it's not a big drive three and a half hours or so. Yeah. Get over to the Capitol and have a chance to to go talk with all the legislators over in Olympia.

What other ways can people from the public get involved in pushing these if they somehow really want to let their voices be known about, say, financial literacy in in education as part of that legislation, how, what are some of the ways that they can get involved other than say, joining the HAPO advocacy team?

[00:22:59] Marylou: Yeah Like you're talking about community members. Oh, yeah, okay So go west is a great resource. They do have a website and it's filled with a lot of information and there should be a section there that Can help people get more involved or even sign up for their newsletters because they do send a newsletter Out to your email and then that it normally covers like the current issues that are going on in legislation And what it is that they're doing?

But also for a critic credit union employees. I think it's a great tool. Go West. They offer a lot of advocacy training they offer. Oh, it's called a YP lead program where you link up with the go West member and you are a mentee to them. And then they pretty much, 

[00:23:48] Scott: So young professionals.

[00:23:49] Marylou: Yes. Young professionals. And then that they have a mentorship program and then they also have a conference where you just hang out with a bunch of people from credit unions and you come together and you Be 

[00:24:01] Scott: able to swap stories, learn a little bit, see what else is going on out there. 

[00:24:04] Marylou: But yeah, I've thankfully have made a lot of friends within the Go West community and also just from going to the Capitol, I was able to link.

Get connected with an old friend. We went to, we actually grew up in the same like area and he we worked at Gisa for a short while, but now he's working at BCU and he's the philanthropy manager. Okay. Yeah. And he is doing amazing, like just traveling. All through Washington and sometimes outside of Washington, just advocating for credit unions.

[00:24:36] Scott: See, I love the fact that like a lot of these stories, like we hear the other credit union names come across every now and again. There's this weird aspect of no, we're all in this for helping the community. While they are competition, it is at the same time working together on a lot of other community projects as well.

But yeah, hearing about somebody who's the philanthropy lead going around the state, helping out and things like that. You can't be mad about that. Yeah. And 

[00:25:02] Marylou: who would do that? Yeah. And who would have thought cause he, he's already, he lives in the West side, so I've never, I don't ever get to see him, but just the fact that we like bumped into each other and reconnected, I thought that was very special, Coming together like for a credit union event and sharing our passion together.

I think that's the great thing about the advocacy program. pieces, you can bring really passionate and talented people in the room and get to see how we can work together to first keep our credit union status and not be taxed because we do so much. I think we utilize it to the best of our abilities.

And really do care about making the community a better place. 

[00:25:42] Scott: Yeah. Giving back If that tax status were to change, that's going to definitely impact the budget and the funding to be able to put back into the community, which is exactly what a community credit union is designed to do. All those amazing events that that we volunteer on and commit money to Which if anybody's interested in some statistics on that, you can jump on happo.

org and take a look at the, in the community section, we have an entire listing of different partnerships and sponsorships, a lot of other stuff that we work on, and that's just the high level spotlight of some of the stuff that we do for the community. I see here in the email, one of the other things that we've got Joe from go west mentioned that they do have an advocacy blog, which does real time updates as they are talking with the state Capitol and even at the federal level at Washington, DC, as things are coming through.

So if you want to stay up to the minute on the information that's coming out Subscribing to that blog is probably a really good way to, to get information along with the newsletter and everything else that's coming out there. 

[00:26:47] Marylou: Yeah. And I would assume that they also do call to actions.

They'll have a pre written message. If there's like certain initiatives that they're trying to pass and we can like right away go in there and copy paste and put our name in there to not let it get past or 

[00:27:02] Scott: take the initiative and take the roadblock out of the way to be able to say, Hey, I want to put my voice on this, but we can't just sign a name on a line on a petition.

It's got to be more of a vocal outreach for a thing. Which again comes down to probably the last and most important one, contacting your legislators, knowing who they are, maybe being involved in getting getting into those meet and greet events so you have the opportunity to chat with them, know who they are, just credit unions got, get to do when, and got to do credit union day.

[00:27:34] Marylou: Something like, not only is like credit union advocacy been something that I've been passionate about, but also just politics and legislators in general, like they're, we elect them to serve us. So it is our, it should be like, we shouldn't feel bad or feel like if we're a burden reaching out to our local legislators and tell them like, Hey, like stressing our concerns, like they are in those positions to make our community a better place.

So they are more than willing to either take our email, take our call if they have the ability to meet up. That's something that I've really I got to experience myself for the most part. They are all willing to hear what we have to say. 

[00:28:15] Scott: Like it comes with the title representative and they are no I would stress this for anybody, whether you voted for them or not, they are the person that is representing your legislative district at the state Capitol, or even at the national level.

They are your representative and therefore they should want to hear from you, whether you think they're doing a fantastic job or not. If you voice your opinion their job should be to represent the interests of their communities up there. So yeah definitely not a burden. It's literally their job to, to listen to us and then speak on our behalf at those.

That's why they're representative elected officials. So no, that is actually a fantastic one because I think too often people feel like, Oh, I don't want to do that because it seems like it might be a bit of a burden. Yeah. You're probably not going to get turned away when you go to send something like that, unless you've done something really special.

What other items are are coming up that you can think of that are like on the horizon right now in the advocacy world? 

[00:29:16] Marylou: That's been probably the main priorities, just continuing to push the financial literacy to be a requirement for high school graduates. It was pretty close to getting passed earlier this year, but some I think some other bills, yeah, I think there was probably some miscommunication 

[00:29:33] Scott: Or maybe it got piggybacked on a different bill that like, which happens a lot try and put something through with something else.

Yeah. But definitely Something that honestly, I think given literally just the the trends that I keep seeing on social media about, man, I wish they had taught us that and the, but then again, like you said as a teenager here's hoping that those lessons just sink in into the subconscious because they're probably not going to be paying as much attention as they could because they don't know yet that this is information that is absolutely going to be helpful for their adult life.

[00:30:08] Marylou: Yeah, and I think even credit unions are more than happy to to help with the school system to either creating the curriculum or being able to work together. So I don't know how it looks, but I know it's something that in time it probably will get past. It's just some things when it comes to bills, it takes a little bit of time, but we haven't given up yet.

Yeah. 

[00:30:31] Scott: Yeah that'll be one of those things. I think we had talked about Joe is probably going to be pushing a lot for that one with Go West trying to make sure that financial literacy becomes more of a thing making sure that gets through. I honestly think that it is absolutely useful for kids, like you mentioned to get that knowledge earlier.

In their life because there's nothing like being, in your late twenties, early thirties and being like, am I an adult enough yet? Am I supposed to know this information? When am I supposed to learn this? Exactly. 

And then 

realizing that, yeah you've got to go out and figure it out on your own or find somebody to help teach it to you.

And more often than not, people are pretty busy. So it's hard to carve out that time unless you're really passionate about going out and learning it yourself. Yeah. So finding a way to force them to learn it early on isn't isn't terrible. 

[00:31:18] Marylou: Or even just for now like encouraging the young students or just younger people like using your resources, there's if you I guess If you have a desire to learn something, like there's more than likely either a YouTube video, there's a blog, there's Podcast.

Podcast, yes. In the day and age where podcasts are so popular, I feel like there's literally a podcast for everything and anything you are wanting to learn. Oh yeah. 

[00:31:47] Scott: And I think that going out, finding some of those resources for for the parents out there see how young you can start helping your kids out.

I know we've had conversations on here before talking about allowances and like teaching kids about saving money early on. You don't have to get super in depth about the topic. Like a three year old's not going to understand compound interest rates or if they do, wow, good on them. But Like finding those steps.

Again, Hapo. org has some financial education tools. Out there, including an entire video series called it's a money thing. And those are some pretty good informational videos for kids. Sit down, watch some of those with the kids and you might be shocked about learning something yourself.

Yeah. 

Yeah, for sure. And we've covered a lot of topics on advocacy today. A lot of things going on. Up at the Capitol. So let's just go ahead and get a quick recap. Why should everybody want to be involved? Why do we want them to get out there and talk to their legislators? Why is this important?

[00:32:48] Marylou: Yeah. I believe it's important because we're in constant threat of being taxed more and to be taxed like banks. And also with the larger deficit all it takes is just one person that is anti credit unions to come in and just start saying, Oh, look, let's, let's start taxing them, even though they don't know the full benefit of running a credit union and all the amazing credit all the amazing advocacy or 

[00:33:16] Scott: community events and 

[00:33:18] Marylou: the people helping people giving back with lower rates even the financial literacy piece that we offer classes like that going to branches and we're fully staffed.

And I just don't think that it's fair to be taxed at, as like a bank, even though we are not the same. Yeah, there's a 

[00:33:37] Scott: different underlying structure between the two. And it, those structures exist for a reason. 

Yeah. 

If they are mad that they are being taxed a particular way, then maybe they should change their structure.

Be awesome. Like a credit union is. 

[00:33:51] Marylou: Yeah. And not only that, but we have to take into consideration that we. don't have the shareholders, members are the shareholders. We're always looking at the best interest for our members. We're, we don't have it's the credit members money, so we, Make sure that we're offering the best rates, having lower fees offering, for not first time buyers, but like offering I guess relationship lending.

If I see someone that has membership, they have direct deposit, they're doing, their part in trying to elevate their live and they want a car loan, like we can step up and give them something because there are members and we're here to, help them in their buying needs and if and I just don't think that you can see that as in a bank because most of The time they don't have you know A person looking at their loans.

It's AI or it's a automated system. So they're 

[00:34:47] Scott: more concerned about the bottom line than they are about the person. 

[00:34:50] Marylou: Yeah. It's like black and white. Like you either have the credit or you don't. At least here at Hapo an underwriter is looking at a lot of, a majority of the loans. If there's any.

There's an FSS that comes in and says, Hey, can you take a second look at this? We're not going to say no, it's no, it's a no no, we're going to take a look at it and we're going to give it a fair evaluation. If we have to, we'll have another underwriter look, or we'll have our manager take a look so it's not like we're so cut throat about our decisioning, we're a relationship.

credit union and we are always trying to do our best to serve our members. And I think you don't get to see that in a bank as often. If you have maybe a million dollars in your account, then you can get whatever you want. Maybe they'll make a relationship call there. But I think that's something that's very important that we continue to advocate for our members, advocate to Show legislators and to show our community that we're here for them and we're constantly trying to find different ways to give back.

[00:35:48] Scott: So advocacy is out there talking to the legislators to protect the credit union way, which is people helping people. Yes. And community focused, our ability to give back to the community to do events like December to remember and to provide some of those other partnerships throughout the community.

[00:36:05] Marylou: Offer scholarships as well, help fund certain not for profits here locally. HAP was very involved in a lot of the not for profits here and we sponsor a lot of the events and it's amazing to see the changes that we're making within other like minded individuals that are, for the community.

[00:36:22] Scott: And like you mentioned, we're not the only credit union out there that's doing that, but if something were to change with a credit union status, all of them are going to be impacted. Yes. So not just HAPO's community commitments, but GEESA. B E C U. All of them are going to feel that impact, which is going to really impact the rest of the community statewide and nationwide.

So advocacy seems to be a pretty important thing for the way of life that people are used to running and living. Mary Lou, thank you so much for coming on. We'll be looking forward to when we get to have you back to talk about how things have gone this year for advocacy and maybe some of the changes that we saw based off of that February 11th community credit credit union day at the Capitol and see what we have been able to accomplish and protect throughout the year through the advocacy efforts.

Thank you very much. This has been dollars and cents community credit unions, financial literacy podcast. Until next time. 

[00:37:20] Marylou: Thank you.