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AmeriCU’s 2023 highlights included expansion, renovations
ROME — AmeriCU Credit Union in July 2023 announced its largest expansion into 15 additional counties across the North Country, Mohawk Valley, Central New York, and Southern Tier communities of New York state. The credit union says it has expanded its field of membership into 24 counties to “promote financial education, stability, and growth.” The […]
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ROME — AmeriCU Credit Union in July 2023 announced its largest expansion into 15 additional counties across the North Country, Mohawk Valley, Central New York, and Southern Tier communities of New York state.
The credit union says it has expanded its field of membership into 24 counties to “promote financial education, stability, and growth.”
The credit union adds that its 2023 operational highlights also included a new virtual financial center, renovations of the Watertown and Auburn financial centers, a website redesign, an expanded interactive ATM network, and a new mobile and online mortgage application.
The Rome–based credit union on March 11 hosted its annual membership meeting. In that session, Ronald Belle, president and CEO of AmeriCU Credit Union, and Nick Fabrizio, who chairs the AmeriCU board of directors, addressed the current membership on the credit union’s financial performance and successes in 2023, “highlighting the achievements the credit union made throughout the year.”
“As AmeriCU looks ahead to 2024, we are eager to deepen the connections we have with our membership,” Belle said in an AmeriCU news release. “We will continue to evolve our services to give back even more to our members and take care of those who have helped us get to where we are today as we expand forward.”
AmeriCU in 2023 also introduced Pay A Person, a mobile application that allows its members to transfer money “quickly and easily” from their mobile phone; along with Pay A Day Early, which provides early access to direct-deposit paychecks including pension, Social Security, and all income payments.
As a credit union and a cooperative, AmeriCU says it is governed by its members through an elected, volunteer board of directors. The credit union’s nominating committee announced that incumbents George Bauer and Joseph Turczyn have been nominated to fill two open positions on the board of directors. The two nominees were seated at the annual meeting.
AmeriCU also used the annual meeting to award 10 scholarships of $1,000 each to local students, who were joined by their families and recognized for their academic achievement.
NBT reports flat earnings in Q1, poised for future growth
NORWICH — NBT Bancorp Inc., (NASDAQ: NBTB), the parent company of NBT Bank, N.A., saw relatively flat earnings in the first quarter of 2024, reporting net income of $33.8 million, or 71 cents a share, compared to $33.7 million, or 78 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. “NBT reported solid results for the quarter
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NORWICH — NBT Bancorp Inc., (NASDAQ: NBTB), the parent company of NBT Bank, N.A., saw relatively flat earnings in the first quarter of 2024, reporting net income of $33.8 million, or 71 cents a share, compared to $33.7 million, or 78 cents per share in the year-ago quarter.
“NBT reported solid results for the quarter despite the ongoing challenges presented by the interest-rate environment,” President/CEO John H. Watt Jr. said in NBT’s April 22 earnings report. “Our resilient balance sheet is the foundation that allows our team to execute on our growth strategies across our markets. Our fee-based businesses continue to grow, providing diversified revenue streams that generated 31 percent of total revenues.”
The banking company generated net interest income of $95.2 million in the first quarter, up 0.1 percent from the first quarter of 2023, but down 4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2023. The quarter-over-quarter decrease stems from a decline in short-term interest-bearing accounts and the interest earned on those accounts, coupled with one less day in the first quarter of 2024 compared to 2023.
Non-interest income at NBT increased by $6.8 million, or 18.7 percent, to hit $43.2 million in the first quarter of this year, compared to the first three months of 2023. NBT saw increases of $2.8 million in retirement-plan administration fees, $500,000 in wealth-management fees, and $700,000 in insurance-services income.
Non-interest expenses increased to
$91.8 million in this year’s first three months from $79.3 million a year prior, driven in part by an 11.4 percent increase in salary and benefit costs due to the bank’s 2023 acquisition of Salisbury Bancorp. Total interest expenses also increased during the first quarter to $51.8 million from
$42.2 million in the first quarter of 2023.
NBT repurchased 1,900 shares of its common stock during the quarter at an average price of $33.03 per share under a previously announced share-repurchase program. As of March 31, there were 1,998,100 shares available for repurchase under this plan.
NBT’s stock price was down about 16 percent year to date as of trading at midday on April 24.
Total deposits as of March 31, 2024, were $11.2 billion, an increase of $226.3 million from the $10.97 billion reported on Dec. 31, 2023. The increase stems mainly from an inflow of seasonal municipal deposits during the quarter, the report stated.
“NBT is poised to participate in the transformational growth that will occur in our core upstate New York markets as the result of multiple game-changing investments in semiconductor manufacturing, including the recently announced $6.1 billion grant Micron Technology will receive under the CHIPS & Science Act that will, in part, support its plans to invest as much as $100 billion, over the next 10 years, in a new complex of semiconductor chip manufacturing plants near Syracuse,” Watt said.
NBT Bancorp, a financial-holding company headquartered in Norwich, has total assets of $13.44 billion. The company operates through NBT Bank, with 154 branches in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut. It also operates EPIC Retirement Plan Services, a national benefits-administration firm based in Rochester, and NBT Insurance Agency, LLC, a full-service insurance agency based in Norwich.
Pathfinder Bank appoints first VP, corporate controller
OSWEGO — Pathfinder Bank recently announced it has named Regina Bass first vice president and corporate controller. In this role, Bass will continue to oversee the bank’s corporate-accounting function and is responsible for both internal and external regulatory financial reporting, including Securities & Exchange Commission filings, for the bank and its subsidiaries. She also serves
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OSWEGO — Pathfinder Bank recently announced it has named Regina Bass first vice president and corporate controller.
In this role, Bass will continue to oversee the bank’s corporate-accounting function and is responsible for both internal and external regulatory financial reporting, including Securities & Exchange Commission filings, for the bank and its subsidiaries. She also serves “as a cornerstone in the bank’s strategic planning structure, working closely with senior management to craft and implement crucial initiatives. With her expertise and agility, Bass continues to enhance the bank’s standing in the ever-changing financial environment,” the bank said in a news release.
Bass joined Pathfinder Bank in 2022, initially serving as VP, financial-analysis manager, before advancing to the role of corporate controller in 2023. Prior to these roles, Bass worked for 13 years at the Bonadio Group, most recently serving as tax principal. Additionally, Bass worked as a tax manager at both KPMG LLP and PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP.
“We are proud to recognize Regina with this promotion,” Walter Rusnak, Pathfinder’s senior VP and chief financial officer, said in the release. “Since joining Pathfinder Bank, Regina has made significant contributions to the bank through her dedication and knowledge of the financial industry. With her leadership and expertise, we look forward to watching her excel in this expanded role.”
Bass is a graduate of Ithaca College and SUNY Oswego, holding a bachelor’s degree in business management and a bachelor’s in accounting, respectively.
Pathfinder Bank is a New York State chartered commercial bank headquartered in Oswego. The bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pathfinder Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: PBHC). The bank has 11 full-service branches located in its market areas consisting of Oswego and Onondaga County.
Solvay Bank appoints business-banking officer
SOLVAY — Solvay Bank announced that Lynn Coates has joined its new small-business banking team as a VP, business-banking officer. Coates joined Solvay Bank in 2022 on Solvay Bank’s commercial-lending team, where she specialized in commercial lending, investments, and small-business banking. She has more than 33 years of banking experience and has been in business
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SOLVAY — Solvay Bank announced that Lynn Coates has joined its new small-business banking team as a VP, business-banking officer.
Coates joined Solvay Bank in 2022 on Solvay Bank’s commercial-lending team, where she specialized in commercial lending, investments, and small-business banking.
She has more than 33 years of banking experience and has been in business banking for 10 years. Coates is active in the community and serves as president of the Golden Retriever Club of Central New York and the obedience chair for the Onondaga Kennel Club. She is also a member of Syracuse Executives and serves as a CenterState CEO ambassador. In addition, Coates spends hours volunteering in therapy work with her professional certified golden retriever.
Founded in 1917, Solvay Bank says it is the oldest community bank established in Onondaga County. The bank has nine branch locations in Solvay, Baldwinsville, Camillus, Cicero, DeWitt, Liverpool, North Syracuse, Westvale, and downtown Syracuse — in the State Tower Building. Solvay Bank also has a commercial-lending presence in the Mohawk Valley.
Community Bank adds escrow-management platform
DeWITT — For businesses that have to hold onto other peoples’ money — think lawyers with escrow accounts and landlords with tenant security deposits — Community Bank N.A. has added a new product to its banking lineup it believes will make things easier. “We’re really excited about it,” Benjamin Conger, commercial banking officer at Community
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DeWITT — For businesses that have to hold onto other peoples’ money — think lawyers with escrow accounts and landlords with tenant security deposits — Community Bank N.A. has added a new product to its banking lineup it believes will make things easier.
“We’re really excited about it,” Benjamin Conger, commercial banking officer at Community Bank, says of the addition of ZEscrow, a management tool for escrow accounts. “We’re always trying to look for ways to make banking easier.”
With all the rules and regulations surrounding escrow and other accounts used to hold money, it can almost be a full-time job just staying on top of that, Conger says.
Imagine a property manager of 20 buildings with each building having 10 rental units, he posits as an example. “They have to keep a security deposit for each tenant,” Conger says. The deposits need to be held in their own separate accounts, he adds, which means the property manager has to go to the bank and open a new account each time there is a new tenant.
Property managers aren’t the only ones who manage such accounts. Lawyers might be holding money in escrow for a client. Even funeral homes that take pre-payment for services need to properly manage those funds, Conger notes.
Managing means keeping detailed records for each account. Many might just use something like a spreadsheet, Conger says,
“It’s not an efficient way to do it,” he says. That’s where a digital platform like ZEscrow can help those who need to hold on to someone else’s money.
With ZEscrow, clients can use the platform to open new accounts, deposit checks, run a variety of reports, and even print statements. For accounts requiring a W-9, ZEscrow will generate that form to be completed. “There’s a place where you can upload the lease for the tenant,” or other documents, Conger says. There is even a way to bulk upload that old spreadsheet to get started on ZEscrow, he adds.
“It’s just extremely easy to use,” Conger says. “The onboarding is very easy.”
The idea to add ZEscrow came from the bank’s treasury-management division, which oversees how money comes into and out of the bank, he says. Those employees were able to see the trends and started the process of looking for a banking solution for those escrow accounts.
At Community Bank, ZEscrow is included with the bank’s Premier Business Connect Online commercial accounts. “If you have that, it’s a free add-on service,” Conger says. Using the service through Community Bank not only makes managing escrow easier, but also comes with the bank’s team and their expertise.
“We’re always looking to help customers,” he says. Conger believes using ZEscrow will save the bank’s customers time, which will free them up to focus on their business and its growth and profits.
The service adds value for existing customers, and Conger hopes it will attract new customers to the bank at a time when it’s expanding its branch presence, especially in Onondaga County.
“Any time we can add new customers, we love that,” Conger says.
Community Bank is part of Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) and operates about 200 branch locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Massachusetts.
Community Bank plots grow as region’s economy picks up
DeWITT — As development and economic activity bustle along the state’s Thruway corridor, Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) has its own plans to beef up its presence in those markets, starting with three new Community Bank, N.A. branches in Onondaga County. “It’s part of our strategic plan,” President/CEO Dimitar Karaivanov tells CNYBJ in an
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DeWITT — As development and economic activity bustle along the state’s Thruway corridor, Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) has its own plans to beef up its presence in those markets, starting with three new Community Bank, N.A. branches in Onondaga County.
“It’s part of our strategic plan,” President/CEO Dimitar Karaivanov tells CNYBJ in an interview. The banking company is always looking at both the future and opportunity, he notes. Growth is important and not just for Community Bank, but also for the communities it serves and its employees, he adds.
“The markets are finally growing in upstate New York,” he says, and that creates opportunity for Community Bank to expand and serve more people. It provides a more personal relationship for customers as compared to national banks, and can provide more services than smaller banks, he contends.
Currently, Community Bank has branches in DeWitt, where it is headquartered, along with Cicero and Skaneateles. It’s adding branches in downtown Syracuse — in the State Tower building on Sout Warren Street — as well as two other branches in the greater Syracuse area.
While he couldn’t disclose more information just yet, Karaivanov notes the branches are in areas Community Bank felt it wasn’t adequately serving yet in order to expand access.
Each of the new branches will be staffed by four to five employees, he says. And Syracuse isn’t the only area getting new locations. Community Bank also plans to grow its branch presence in Buffalo, Rochester, the Capital District, the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, and the Springfield, Massachusetts region. It will also open its first physical branch in New Hampshire within the next year or so, Karaivanov says. Community Bank currently has branches in Vermont and has gained some New Hampshire–based customers through those locations. Now, they will have a closer location to serve them.
The bank has experienced above market-rate growth over the past three years, Karaivanov says. “Now, we’ve just got to make some real investment in those markets on the heels of that success.”
While companies like Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU), which just landed billions in federal funding for the chip plant it plans to build in Clay along with another in Idaho, are getting big headlines. But it’s really the whole corridor from Buffalo to Albany, and especially in the Syracuse area, that has Community Bank excited, Karaivanov says.
The economic pipeline for Central New York is about 20 times bigger than it was in 2019, he says, especially in the areas of advanced manufacturing as companies re-shore manufacturing from overseas.
“There’s just a lot happening here,” Karaivanov says, and Community Bank wants to be part of it. The banking company has two buckets it has to keep track of, he says. One is opportunity, and the other is responsibility. As it acts on opportunity, it has to keep responsibility in mind, he says.
“What are you doing to make this success inclusive for all of the community?” he asks. Community Bank will do that through specialized products that will help those most in need, such as its special purpose credit homeownership program that removes barriers to homeownership like closing costs and downpayments by providing up to 100 percent financing.
“It really is the cornerstone of our communities,” Karaivanov says of homeownership, which typically leads to people being more invested and therefore investing more in their neighborhoods.
Community Bank System operates more than 200 Community Bank N.A. branch locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Massachusetts. The banking company has more than $15 billion in assets and employes nearly 2,900 people across all its locations and business lines, which includes benefits administration through its Benefit Plans Administrative Services, Inc. subsidiary; insurance services through the OneGroup NY, Inc. subsidiary; and wealth management through its Community Bank Wealth Management operating unit.
OPINION: Protect Those Who Protect Us
Two [Central New York] police officers were senselessly gunned down [on April 14] by a deranged individual following what should have been a routine traffic stop. The two heroes, Syracuse cop Michael Jensen and Onondaga County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Hoosock, died defending the communities they swore to protect. We all mourn these shining pillars of
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Two [Central New York] police officers were senselessly gunned down [on April 14] by a deranged individual following what should have been a routine traffic stop. The two heroes, Syracuse cop Michael Jensen and Onondaga County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Hoosock, died defending the communities they swore to protect. We all mourn these shining pillars of service, and we owe them and their families an unpayable debt.
Attacks on law enforcement in recent weeks have sent shockwaves through New York. From the horrific murder of Officer Jonathan Diller in New York City to the recent shooting in Albany, police officers are facing an unprecedented assault from violent criminals. As these attacks mount, I am continually disgusted by how little they have moved the state’s Democrat leadership to take any action. The response from the other side has amounted to little more than business as usual. Violent criminals have become emboldened, and the badge of law enforcement has become a bullseye. If these individuals don’t even second-guess shooting a police officer how are New Yorkers going to walk the streets safely?
The Assembly Minority Conference has offered a series of common-sense proposals to help protect law enforcement and the public. Each remains stalled by misguided Democrat leadership. Among some of our proposals are:
• Mandatory Life Without Parole — Makes life imprisonment without parole (LWOP) mandatory for defendants convicted of murder in the first degree or second degree if the victim is a police officer, specified peace officer, first responder, or correctional officer (A.7472, Angelino/S. 408, Gallivan).
• Hate Crimes Against First Responders — Designates offenses against law enforcement, emergency medical services personnel, and/or firefighters as hate crimes, thereby increasing the penalty for the offense (A.3417, DeStefano/S.6091, Murray).
• Imposing the Dangerousness Standard — Allows a judge to consider the safety of any person or the community when selecting a securing order on a criminal suspect. Requires the court to make an individualized determination as to whether suspects pose a risk or threat of physical danger to the safety of any person or the community and a determination as to whether they pose a risk of flight to avoid prosecution (Reilly).
• Reinstating the death penalty in New York state and make it an available sentence for those convicted for the intentional killing of police officers, specified peace officers, and first responders, among others. Further, mandate LWOP for cop killers not sentenced to death (A.3906, Barclay).
National Crime Victims’ Rights Week [is April 21-27]. This year, we remember several law-enforcement officers as we reflect on the lives of the many victims of crime here in New York. Every single one of these crimes is a tragedy, especially the ones that took the lives of those who died in the line of duty. In the name of officers Jensen, Hoosock, Diller, and anyone else victimized by senseless violence, Albany needs to stand with those who protect us and take action to support our police.
William (Will) A. Barclay, 55, Republican, is the New York Assembly minority leader and represents the 120th New York Assembly District, which encompasses all of Oswego County, as well as parts of Jefferson and Cayuga counties.
OPINION: You’re Used to How Congress Does Budgets. You Shouldn’t Be
There was lots of drama back at the end of March, when Congress — six months behind schedule — finally funded the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year. You may remember some of the highlights: The $1.2 trillion package funded defense, homeland security, and other key agencies (others had gotten their funding
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There was lots of drama back at the end of March, when Congress — six months behind schedule — finally funded the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year. You may remember some of the highlights: The
$1.2 trillion package funded defense, homeland security, and other key agencies (others had gotten their funding a few weeks earlier), and Congress passed it mere hours before a government shutdown.
This, of course, was characterized as a great success, though Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, was straightforward about what it took. “It’s been a long day, a long week and a very long few months,” he told the press. “It’s no small feat to get a package like this done in divided government.” Over in the House, the fact that Republican Speaker Mike Johnson played ball with Democrats to get the package through led to the first stage of a move by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green to seek his ouster as speaker.
I take some comfort from the fact that the government is now funded through September and Congress can move on to a full agenda of pressing business. But I take no comfort at all from the fact — indeed, I’m genuinely outraged —that we’re just going to go through all this again at some point down the road. The congressional budget process is deeply and fundamentally broken.
What I find most distressing is that there’s now an entire generation of Americans and members of Congress who know only this: that the budget consists of a gargantuan bill hammered out by congressional leaders and the White House and some key staff, then is rushed through with little debate and even less insight into what it contains, other than some key topline figures. The fact that in the world’s greatest democracy this is how we handle the fundamental blueprint of our government, and its priorities should not be a point of pride. As veteran budget analyst Alice Rivlin put it, it is “frightening and embarrassing that the world’s most experienced democracy is currently unable to carry out even the basic responsibility of funding the services that Americans are expecting from their government.” That was in 2018, the year before her death.
That’s especially true because we know how to do better. Though I’ve done this before, let me remind you of what you’re missing. Up until the mid-1990s, Congress followed a process that had been honed over decades. It divided the budget into a dozen different areas, and then handled their appropriations through separate committee hearings. These allowed committees — and the rank-and-file members who sat on them — to gather expert opinions, propose changes, and thoroughly vet federal spending decisions in both chambers before sending each bill on to the president. It was not a perfect process, but it was transparent, far more democratic, orderly, and a politically rational way to decide on our priorities and how to fund them.
These days, we just take it for granted that we have to live with high-stakes fiscal brinksmanship. And that the myriad crucial decisions that undergird our government’s operations will be contained in omnibus spending bills or continuing resolutions that basically put the government on automatic pilot and get no real scrutiny. Congress’s historical role as a nurturer of innovation and creative approaches to problem-solving? Nowhere in sight.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to improve matters. There are plenty of members of the GOP majority in the House who ran two years ago on restoring the “regular order” of the appropriations process. And in all my conversations with public officials in recent years, I’ve never heard a single one defend what goes on now. So, in theory, there should be plenty of motivation to restore a saner approach to budgeting.
But there’s also reality. After returning from their recess, members of Congress are settling in to work on the next appropriations round, facing an Oct. 1 deadline to keep the government funded. It’s an election year. Any bets that they’ll get the job done in orderly fashion and without resorting to a stopgap spending measure in September? I didn’t think so.
Lee Hamilton, 92, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south-central Indiana.
BRIANA FOX has been appointed as the new assistant VP, branch manager for Solvay Bank’s North Syracuse branch. She joined Solvay Bank in 2016 as
New York home sales resumed their decline in March
Inventory hits another record low ALBANY — New York homes sales resumed their decline in March after a one-month reprieve in February. New York realtors sold 6,685 previously owned homes this March, down 14.2 percent from the 7,790 homes they sold in the year-ago month, according to the monthly housing report that the New York
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ALBANY — New York homes sales resumed their decline in March after a one-month reprieve in February.
New York realtors sold 6,685 previously owned homes this March, down 14.2 percent from the 7,790 homes they sold in the year-ago month, according to the monthly housing report that the New York State Association of Realtors (NYSAR) issued on April 18. This came after New York home sales rose in February for the first time in 30 months, through it was a less than 1 percent increase.
The number of homes for sale in New York totaled 23,924 in March, down nearly 15 percent from the 28,060 homes available for sale in March 2023. It’s the lowest number of homes for sale since statistics have been kept in New York state, NYSAR said. It also marks the 13th straight month that inventory has dropped in year-over-year comparisons, it added.
Mortgage rates in March continued to rise closer to 7 percent again. NYSAR cited Freddie Mac as indicating interest rates averaged 6.82 percent on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. That was up from the 6.78 percent rate in March. A year ago, at this time, the interest rate stood at 6.54 percent. Freddie Mac is the more common way of referring to the Virginia–based Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.
Pending sales totaled 9,576 in March, a decrease of 2 percent from the 9,776 pending sales in the same month in 2023, according to the NYSAR data. This foreshadows further declines in closed sales in the next couple of months.
The March 2024 statewide median sales price was $380,000, up 5.6 percent from the March 2023 median sales price of $360,000.
The months’ supply of homes for sale at the end of this March stood at 2.6 months, down more than 7 percent from the 2.8 months’ supply at the end of March 2023, per NYSAR. A 6-month to 6.5-month supply is considered a balanced market, the association said.
New listings fell 7.5 percent to 11,790 this March from 12,749 in March 2023.
All home-sales data is compiled from multiple-listing services in New York, and it includes townhomes and condominiums in addition to existing single-family homes, according to NYSAR.
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