Posted on

The 67th Legislative Assembly of the North Dakota Legislature wrapped up in the very early morning hours of Friday, April 27 which marked the 76th day of the session saving four 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 and we will work hard in the interim voicing our advocacy message. 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!

For more...

Posted on

Happy April everyone! We’ve had some early glimpses of spring after a very mild winter, but now we need some of those April showers for the May flowers. I’ve had numerous discussions with member bank ag lenders over the past several weeks. There are some pretty consistent themes across the state. First, most producers are better off right now than they were a year ago. And second, while it varies slightly, it’s too dry everywhere. Hopefully, Mother Nature provides some relief on the latter point.

For more...

Posted on

Happy 2021 everyone! I know this is going to be a great year and I hope it’s starting off that way for you and yours. Things in life are often relative and compared to a baseline. If 2020 is our baseline for evaluating 2021, then hallelujah! I like our chances for improvement. Covid cases are down and we’re seeing some light at the end of the tunnel with respect to this dastardly pandemic. I also know that 2021 will have its challenges, I just hope they aren’t the same challenges that we’ve faced the past almost year now.

For more...

Posted on

Politics, elections and pandemics, oh my! That’s kind of my take on the past several months and a less than articulate comparative reference to Dorothy’s infamous “lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my” quote from the Wizard of Oz. But just as those beasts struck fear in the hearts of Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow as they skipped through the forest in that iconic 1939 film, today’s unknowns of a yet-to-be resolved pandemic, a new administration and an unknown US Senate makeup (the Georgia runoffs are at least one reminder that the election isn’t really over) have left us modern day citizens a bit skittish about what’s ahead of us.

While it might not be a great career move for someone whose job it is to advocate for a tremendous community banking organization, I promised myself I wasn’t going to drone on about politics, the recent election and certainly not the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in this message. We’ve all had enough. I know I’ve had enough. A wise friend of mine asked me a few days ago if I could recall having recent conversations that didn’t involve politics or the pandemic. I couldn’t except for Stacey telling me that the dogs were tangled around the tree again. But I don’t think those count as “conversations” so I excluded them for the purposes of the exercise at hand.

For more...

Posted on

As I write this, it occurred to me that today is the first day of fall. Other than the leaves changing color, one might think it’s just another beautiful summer day as the temperature approaches 90 degrees in Bismarck. While 2020 has kind of been the year to forget, our summer weather was really quite delightful for the most part.

While our weather was pleasant, I can’t say it’s been a pleasant summer of clarity and direction for our bank members relative to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) forgiveness process. Community banks across the country including North Dakota stepped up to efficiently process PPP loans and distribute those much-needed funds to our business and ag customers. You accomplished what the federal government couldn’t. And now, in my opinion, you’ve sort of been left holding the bag. Even the General Accounting Office (GAO) recognized this in their report issued this week. As they reported, the complexity and lack of guidance surrounding PPP loan forgiveness could limit the effectiveness of future rounds of the program.

For more...

ICBA Press Releases

Endorsed Members