House and Senate appropriators are giving Ginnie Mae more flexibility to increase its staff despite Congressional emphasis on budget cutting and reducing deficits.
This week, during a markup of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget bill for fiscal year 2012, Senate appropriators gave Ginnie Mae approval to use $20 million of its funds to hire additional staff and pay for certain administrative expenses.
In the other chamber, the House Transportation and HUD subcommittee approved Ginnie's budget with $19 million allotted for hiring staff and administrative expenses.
Ginnie currently employs 88 full-timers. Ginnie President Ted Tozer wants to increase his staff to 103 by the end of fiscal 2012, which comes on September 30.
"I am happy that they acknowledged how important our role is and how important having adequate staffing is," Tozer said.
With the collapse of the nonprime market, the secondary market agency has experienced unprecedented growth the past few years. One of Tozer's priorities has been to beef up Ginnie's staff to catch up with its size.
Issuance of Ginnie Mae MBS hit a record, $454 billion in 2009 – more than four-fold since 2007.
In fiscal year 2010 Ginnie posted net earnings of $541.5 million.
