Commissioner's Corner
By: Judi Stork, Acting Bank Commissioner
As we begin the year of 2007, best wishes to all of you from the OSBC staff for a prosperous New Year. May all of your ratings be "1"!
2006 marked another good year for the OSBC and it brought both new additions to and departures from our staff. Long time employees Stacy Morris and George Myers, who served the agency for 23 years and 27 years respectively, retired during the year, as did Commissioner Clancy Norris. We added a new Network Administrator position in our IT department this last year and filled seven vacant field examiner positions.
With regard to legislative issues, we eliminated the mandatory requirement for trust departments to file fiduciary asset reports; we will begin using the data obtained from the FDIC call reports instead. Hopefully, the elimination of this additional report will provide some small amount of regulatory relief.
The condition of the Kansas state banks as of December 31, 2006, showed 97.3% of the 255 banks with a CAMELS composite rating of 1 or 2. We currently have seven problem banks, which is the lowest number the agency has noted since 1998, when there were only four problem institutions.
Looking forward to 2007, the Governor has announced the appointment of Thomas Thull, Newton, as the new commissioner. By the time this newsletter arrives in your office, we hope Mr. Thull will have joined us here in Topeka. The new commissioner has both legislative and banking experience, which is a plus for the agency.
It has once again been my pleasure to serve as the Acting Commissioner. The cooperation, knowledge and skills of Kansas bankers are an immeasurable benefit and help me, and our agency's staff, in carrying out our regulatory duties. I sincerely appreciate the relationships we have established.
