Commisioner's Corner
By: Clancy Norris, Bank Commissioner
Dear Kansas Bankers:
It is a new year and like everyone, we at the Bank Commissioner's office look for ways to enhance and improve what we do. With this in mind, I want to take the opportunity this quarter to tell you about a few changes that will be occurring at the Office of the State Bank Commissioner (OSBC).
"Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
- John F. Kennedy
For many years, our office has divided the state of Kansas into seven examination regions. This has worked well for us but, as the number of banks has declined in recent years (they are now at 261), we find that our staffing needs and the number of banks per region do not match each other in the most efficient manner. We have studied this issue thoroughly and, after much reflection and deliberation, have made a decision to realign our territories into four regions while keeping a physical office in the current seven cities in which we are located. The four new regions will each have a Regional Manager who will be responsible for supervising the banks in that area as well as our agency staff.
The regions and the Regional Managers are listed below. Some minor changes may still be made before the realignment is implemented on March 1, 2005.
NORTHWEST REGION - James Hass - 72 banks will be supervised by this region which will include our offices in Hays and Salina.
SOUTHWEST REGION - Mike Jackson - This region will encompass our offices in the Dodge City and Wichita areas and will supervise approximately 72 banks.
NORTHEAST REGION - Ken Torgler - The Topeka and Overland Park offices will be located in this region which will oversee approximately 70 banks.
SOUTHEAST REGION - Ed Spielbusch - This region will change the least geographically. It will continue to be supervised from our Erie office and will cover 47 banks.
We hope this reorganization will be smooth and the transition will be seamless to the banks we regulate. We anticipate that in most cases, your examination crew will remain primarily the same. We receive outstanding remarks about our examiners from our post examination surveys, which tout the skill, professionalism, qualifications, and helpfulness of our examiners. These individuals attend extensive and ongoing training in order to advance within our agency. We are very proud of the department staff and truly feel they are doing high quality work for the state banks and trust companies of Kansas. We believe the realignment of the offices will allow us to be more efficient and better utilize our staff resources.
I would also like to share with you a second area of change for the agency and the banks we regulate. The OSBC has recently begun to include a Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) examination and an Information Technology (IT) examination as part of our Safety and Soundness (S&S) review of the bank. We are currently working with the FDIC and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City by shadowing these fellow regulators when they complete their specialty examinations. We have one full time IT examiner who is responsible for the more complex IT examinations. Our commercial bank examiners will do the other IT and BSA reviews. Generally, all exams will occur in conjunction with our S&S exam in order to minimize the number of visits by your various regulators. Our main goal is to ensure that risk caused by the IT and BSA areas does not affect the overall safety and soundness of the state banks. We intend for these specialty exams to assist you by providing good information while giving quality support.
The third area of change I want to make you aware of relates to the scheduling of our bank and trust examinations. Beginning March 1, 2005 the scheduling of examinations will be consolidated into the main office. We have visited with our surrounding states and many of them use centralized scheduling with positive results. We feel the centralization of this process will enhance our efficiency and will give us better control and flexibility in scheduling our examinations and our staff. Again, this change will most likely go unnoticed by the state bankers, but we wanted to make you aware of this modification.
Change is not always easy and certainly not always comfortable. These decisions were made after a great deal of research and consideration and we pledge to continue to provide the best possible quality of information and service to you, the institutions we regulate. Before our implementation of these changes on March 1, 2005, we will communicate with each of you as to your specific Regional Manager and from what region you will be supervised. Please always remember, your thoughts and suggestions are of utmost importance to us. We may not always agree on the end result but we certainly value your input. I hope the line of communication will always be open to each of you.
Sincerely,
Clancy Norris
Bank Commissioner
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." - M. Scott Peck
