Civista Bancshares, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of Savista Bank's shares bank that involves risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors are discussed in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. Additionally, management may refer to non-GAAP measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release, also available on the company's website, contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as the reconciliation of the GAAP to non-GAAP measures. This call will be recorded and made available on Savista Bank Shares' website at www.cibb.com. At the conclusion of Mr. Schaffer's remarks, he and the Savista management team will take any questions you may have. Now, I will turn the call over to Mr. Schaffer. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. This is Dennis Schaffer, President and CEO of Savista Bank Shares, and I would like to thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2024 earnings call. I'm joined today by Rich Dutton, SVP of the company and Chief Operating Officer of the bank, Chuck Percher, SVP of the company and Chief Lending Officer of the bank, and other members of our executive team. This morning, we reported net income for the first quarter of $6.4 million, or 41 cents per deleted share, which represents a $6.5 million decline from our first quarter in 2023 and a $3.3 million decline from our linked quarters. While we are disappointed in our results, we knew there would be headwinds as we stepped away from the third-party processor of income tax refunds, and we did not have the benefit of a $1.5 million one-time bonus that we received from the renegotiation of our debit brand agreement. In addition, in late 2023, we implemented changes in the way we process overdrafts, which reduced service charge income. As a result of these three items, non-interest income was approximately $3.8 million less in this quarter than in the previous year. While we continue to reduce rates on our CD specials and select money market accounts, the migration from our non-interest bearing and lower rate checking accounts into higher rate money market accounts and CDs continue to put pressure on our net interest margin. We also experienced an increase in our allowance for credit losses as our CECL model requires higher reserves based on our individually analyzed loan and lease portfolio and loan growth. During the third quarter of 2023, we announced that Savista would be stepping away from the third-party processor of tax refunds due to increased scrutiny from our regulators. Savista earned $1.9 million and $475,000 respectively during the first and second quarters of 2023 related to this program. Like many in the industry, we have been analyzing the way we process overdraft accounts and the fees associated with those services. Late in December, we discontinued assessing a charge on represented overdrafts and reduced our NSF charge from $37 to $32. We are also enhancing how we communicate with our customers on the use of their deposit accounts. Our overdraft fees, which are included in service charges, declined $375,000 compared to our first quarter of 2023. We anticipate these changes will reduce service charge revenue by $1.2 million over the course of 2024. In anticipation of this lost revenue, we implemented a number of initiatives to reduce our reliance on wholesale and borrowed funding to increase revenue and to reduce expenses. Although we have seen some immediate impact, most of the benefit from these initiatives will occur over the balance of the year. I am encouraged by the early results, and I'm optimistic that we are headed in the right direction. We anticipated pressure on our margin as we exited the tax program and the need to replace the significant interest-free funding balances it provided during the first and second quarters. However, it is difficult to model the impact of the depositors migrating from non-interest-bearing into interest-bearing accounts, which was evident during the quarter. During the quarter, our cost of funding increased by 35 basis points, to 2.54%, while our yield on earning assets increased by 12 basis points to 5.64%. This resulted in our margin contracting by 22 basis points, coming in at 3.22% for the quarter. During the quarter, we continued our measured approach to decreasing rates paid on some of our higher tier demand deposit accounts and CD specials. In spite of lowering these rates, our cost of deposits excluding brokered deposits increased by 21 basis points to 1.22% during the quarter. We have a number of initiatives in progress to reduce costs and our reliance on brokered and wholesale funding. The state of Ohio announced its Ohio Home Buyers Plus program to encourage Ohioans to save for the purchase of homes in Ohio by offering tax incentives to the depositors and subsidizing participating banks. As part of the program, the state will deposit up to $100 million in low-cost funds at the current rate of 86 basis points into participating banks. We also have historically maintained the cash balances of our wealth management clients and other financial institutions. However, we are currently taking steps that will allow us to hold the cash deposits of our wealth management clients at the bank. We anticipate the rates to approximate Fed funds less 20 to 25 basis points. Based on the current cash positions, we anticipate being able to move $75 million of these funds into the bank by the end of the third quarter. Our loan and lease portfolios grew at an annualized rate of 5% for the quarter. This was organic growth, and we believe it is indicative of the continued strength of our markets in our organization. While this is slower, we have focused on holding rates at higher levels. We anticipate continuing to grow at a mid-single-digit pace for the balance of 2024. While our overall credit remains solid, as I previously mentioned, we experienced an increase in our allowance for credit losses as our CECL model required higher reserves based on our individually analyzed loan and lease portfolios. This was primarily attributable to a hospitality credit and a cellular power credit that have both been classified for several quarters. Both borrowers continue to be cooperative. However, new information became available during the quarter, and it was necessary to adjust the collateral values and to increase our reserve. Earlier, we announced a quarterly dividend of 16 cents per share. Based on our March 29th share price, this represents a 4.16% yield and a dividend payout ratio of 42.11%. Our efficiency ratio for the quarter was 73.8% compared to 64.3% for the linked quarter. However, if we were to back out the depreciation expense related to our operating leases from our leasing group, our efficiency ratio would have been 70% for the quarter and 60% for the linked quarter. During the quarter, non-interest income declined $319,000 or 3.6% in comparison to the linked quarter and $2.6 million or 23.2% in comparison to the prior year first quarter. The primary drivers of the decrease from our linked quarter were declines in service charges due to the previously mentioned changes to how we were processing overdrafts and a $418,000 decline in swap fee income. These declines were offset by increases in other non-interest income, which included increases of $182,000 in fees related to leases and $289,000 in income from our captive insurance subsidiaries. The primary drivers for the decline for the prior year's first quarter were $1.9 million in tax refund processing fees earned in the prior year that I mentioned earlier and a non-recurring $1.5 million signing bonus that we recognized in the first quarter of 2023 related to a new debit brand agreement. These declines were partially offset by increases in the same other non-interest income items, a $584,000 increase in fees related to leases and a $453,000 increase in income from our captive insurance subsidiary. Non-interest expense for the quarter of $27.7 million represents a $2.3 million or 9% increase from our linked quarter. This increase is primarily attributable to increases in compensation-related expenses, including salaries, which were up $139,000, payroll taxes, which increased $434,000 as the beginning of the year full payroll tax load resumed, and an increase in health insurance expense of $346,000. You will recall that Sylvista is self-insured for our employee health insurance. As has been our practice, we begin each year by accruing our health insurance expense at the rate computed by our actuaries. Thankfully, as has often been the case, we were able to reduce that accrual in the third and fourth quarters of the prior year. In addition, the combination of accruing up our marketing accrual in the previous quarter and the resumption of our monthly marketing accrual in the current quarter accounted for $669,000 of the increase. Compared to the prior year's first quarter, non-interest expense increased $257,000, or 1%. The increase is attributable to our normal annual merit increases, which take place each April in software expenses related to our digital banking platform that were mostly offset by declines in depreciation related to operating leases and professional fees that were paid to the consultant who assisted us with our debit card brand renewal in the prior year. Turning our focus to the balance sheet. For the quarter, total loans and leases grew by $36.4 million. This represents an annualized growth rate of 5%. While we experienced increases in nearly every loan category, Our most significant increases were in non-owner-occupied CRE loans, residential real estate loans, and real estate construction loans. The loans we are originating for our portfolio are virtually all adjustable rate loans, and our leases all have maturities of five years or less. New and renewed commercial loans were originated at an average rate of 7.92% during the quarter. Loans secured by office buildings make up about 5.1% of our total loan portfolio. As we have stated previously, these loans are not secured by high-rise metro office buildings. Rather, they are predominantly secured by single or two-story offices located outside of central business districts. Along with year-to-date loan production, our pipelines are fairly strong and our undrawn construction lines were $244 million at March 31st. Again, we anticipate loan growth to continue to be in the mid-single-digit range for the balance of 2024. On the funding side, total deposits were mostly flat, declining just $4.3 million, or negative 0.1%, since the beginning of the year. However, if we back out non-core tax program and broker deposits, our deposit balance has declined to $29 million, or 1% year-to-date. As I mentioned, we have a number of initiatives in progress aimed at gathering core funding. Our deposit base is fairly granular, with our average deposit account excluding CDs approximately $25,000. Non-interest-bearing demand accounts continue to be a focus. Excluding tax-related and brokered deposits, non-interest-bearing deposits made up 29.5% of our total deposits at March 31st. With respect to FDIC insured deposits, excluding Savista's own deposit accounts and those related to the tax program, 13.1% or $392.3 million of our deposits were in excess of the FDIC limit at quarter end. Our cash and unpledged securities at March 31st were $452 million, which more than covered these uninsured deposits. Other than the $369.5 million of public funds with various municipalities across our footprint, we had no deposit concentration at March 31st. At quarter end, our loan to deposit ratio was 98.3%. Our commercial lenders, treasury management officers, and private bankers continue to have some success requesting additional deposits and compensating balances from our commercial customers and we will continue to be disciplined in how we price our deposits. We believe our low-cost deposit franchise is one of Sadista's most valuable characteristics, contributing significantly to our solid net interest margin and overall profitability. The interest rate environment continues to put pressure on bond portfolios. At March 31st, all of our securities were classified as available for sale. and had $62.5 million of unrealized losses associated with them. This represented an increase of unrealized losses of $7.9 million since December 31, 2023. Over the past few quarters, we have reduced our security portfolio by using its cash flow to fund our balance sheet. At March 31, our security portfolio was $608.3 million, which represented 15.7% of our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with our Tier 1 leverage ratio at 8.62%, which is deemed well capitalized for regulatory purposes. Our tangible common equity ratio was 6.26% at March 31st, down slightly from 6.36% at December 31st, 2023. So this is earnings continue to create capital, and our overall goal remains to maintain adequate capital to support organic loan growth and potential acquisitions. Although we did not repurchase any shares during the quarter, we continue to believe our stock is of value. While our capital levels remain strong, we recognize our tangible common equity ratios spring low. Our previous guidance remains that we would like to rebuild our TCE ratio back to between 7% and 7.5%. To that end, we will continue to focus on earnings and will balance any repurchases in the payment of dividends with building capital to support growth. As we stated in an earlier 8K, the Board reauthorized a new stock repurchase program of $13.5 million during its April meeting. Despite the uncertainties associated with the economy and the expense pressures our borrowers face, our credit quality remains strong and our credit metrics remain stable. As I previously mentioned, we did make a $2 million provision during the quarter, which was primarily attributable to higher reserves required by our model based on individually analyzed loans and leases, which was driven by two credits. A $3.3 million hospitality credit, which we expect to resolve via the sale of the properties and have a substantial guarantor backing, and a $4 million cellular tower credit, which we expect to resolve in the next six months. I would note that neither of these credit issues were related to underwriting weakness. The hotel had an issue with its fire suppression system during the pandemic that prevented it from operating for 17 months and continues to limit operations. The cellular tower business suffered an internal fraud where an employee caused significant damage to the company for personal gain. Our ratio of allowance for credit losses increased from 1.3% at December 31st, 2023 to 1.34% at March 31st. In addition, our allowance for credit losses to non-performing credits increased from 245.67% at December 31st, 2023 to 247.06% at March 31st. In summary, although our margin compression was more than we anticipated, our margin remains strong. We are taking steps to generate more lower-cost funding. Our loan growth during the quarter should remain at a mid-single-digit pace for the balance of 2024. While we experienced some isolated credit issues, we have seen no systemic deterioration in our credit quality. Overall, SOVISTA continues to generate solid earnings, and our focus continues to be on creating shareholder value. Thank you for your attention this afternoon and your investment, and now we will be happy to address any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press restore, followed by the one on your touchstone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Questions will be taken in the order received. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Once again, that is star one should you wish to ask a question. Your first question is from Brendan Nossel from Havde Group. Please ask your question.

Yeah, good afternoon, folks. Hope you're doing well. Hi, Brendan.

Maybe just to start off here, I think you folks have historically had the CFO position vacant for quite a long time. So just maybe talk through the decision to formally fill that CFO position with your announcement earlier today, and why now is the right time.

Well, I think that, you know, Todd Michael has filled that role for us for the last 30 years, and he's done a great job at that. But Todd is approaching retirement age. He'll be retiring in the next couple of years. And we wanted to have sufficient time. Todd has a lot of institutional knowledge, and we think he'll bring value working with our new CFO. But we just thought the timing of that is right now, given his plans for the future. All right, great. Thanks.

Maybe one more from me moving to the expense base, you know, cost, even though costs were up sequentially, they still came in quite a bit better than I was expecting. I think on the last earnings call, you folks pinpointed like 28.7 million of expenses per quarter for the final three quarters of the year. Just kind of curious to hear your updated thoughts on the expense base and how you expect that to trend going forward.

Yeah, Brenda, this is Rich. We did. We got it in the last quarter, I think, during the call to 28.4. And I would say that's a good number for the rest of the year. And the big difference that we're going to have between the first quarter and the rest of the year is, as you'll recall, our merit increase is going to affect April 1st every year. And that's really the only significant, I think, additional cash expenditure that we've got slated in our budget.

Yeah, we've really focused on kind of expense control here near the end of last year and going into this year, just knowing the lost revenues that we would have. So I think that's really good if we're guiding to the, because I think we're starting to see some of the expense control initiatives that we put into place. So I think that number at Rich Dave, if we guided last quarter, our merit increases went into effect in the second quarter. So I think that's showing that I think we are controlling other expenses.

Yep, yep, that's perfect. All right, thank you for taking my questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question is from Justin Riley from Piper Sandler.

Please ask your question.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Wanted to hit on the net interest margin for the quarter. You know, given some of the dynamics you discussed in the prepared remarks, can you unpack a little more just what you're seeing as far as lingering upward pressure on the funding side? You know, where we may be on that, you know, when you get to a spot where asset repricing allows for margin stabilization and let's call it a flat rate environment.

Yeah, Justin, this is Rich again. I can't remember if you were on the call last time or not, but I don't have a great track record of predicting what our margin is going to do. But I think even with the contraction, I mean, our margin is respectable, and I think the initiatives that Dennis discussed, the Ohio homebuyers, we feel pretty confident we're going to be able to bring in $100 million of pretty low-cost funding related to that, and the opportunity to move some of the cash balances that our wealth management group has that are off balance sheet onto our balance sheet are two opportunities to kind of reduce funding. And again, I think absent growth and probably the bigger wild card is absent migration from the non-interest bearing deposits into higher, whether they're money market or even CDs. I mean, that's the thing that I think we continue to, it's just, I don't think it's impossible to model, but we haven't figured out how to model that. I think our models tell us that if nothing changes and we don't have any significant crazy movements in interest rates, then, again, it will contract by basis points. But I've said that two quarters in a row, and I've been wrong two quarters in a row.

The big difference, I think, Justin, is we are starting to see some positives. We are, you know, we were able to reprice some broker near the end of March, some of the broker deposits. we did see, you know, some improvement there. We were able to get, you know, that funding at, you know, 22 basis points less than we had it on the books for. We have, you know, a lot of our CD specials, you know, are starting, you know, rates haven't moved, so those rates were high back mid-year last year, you know, into the third quarter. Those rates, you know, will adjust downward at their next repricing here over the next, you know, the ones that are coming due over the next quarter or so. So there are some positive signs, but I do think, as Rich alluded to, it all comes down to, you know, the loan, you know, how fast we grow loans, you know, because we're going to need funding for that. And we may not get the benefit of, you know, like the wealth program and the tax money. That may be a third quarter thing. you know, we're starting to implement and we'll be able to start taking those homebuyer plus deposits here early in the first week of May here. But how quickly we put those on the balance sheet will really depend on what that, you know, where our margin goes in that second quarter. But the third quarter, I think we should see good improvement because we also have more loans and assets repricing than we have the first half of the year. So there's a couple of factors, you know, I think at least some positive signs that we see that the margin might start stabilizing.

Okay, gotcha. That's helpful. And then I guess just dovetailing off some of that, you know, what do you have? I'm not sure if you're able to quantify just in terms of brokered funding that's maturing through the balance of the year. And, you know, what does that repricing look like looking forward here?

That is all in the fourth quarter. The remainder of it, we have nothing repricing. We had a slug of $151 million that repriced March 20th. So we really didn't get much benefit of that in the first quarter. And the next two slugs of our broker stuff is really in the fourth quarter, late in the fourth quarter, that we'll reprice. That's right, Brent.

So we've got $500 million that's been kind of constant. And as Dennis said, we've got $200 million of that that will come due or mature in November of this year. The rest of it goes into 2025. And that's really... Okay.

Okay, that's helpful. And then just shifting gears a little, you know, I know the focus here has been rebuilding capital levels, getting TC back to seven, seven and a half, but just looking for any high level commentary on the environment for M&A, which, you know, of course has remained fairly quiet, but just more so trying to get a sense of just where your capital priorities stand over, you know, maybe the medium or longer term.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's a lot of dialogue happening around M&A. I just think it's a really tough environment to do an M&A right now, whether you're a buyer or a seller. The loan marks, you know, trying to figure that out in this environment with, you know, a lot of times, you know, you really have to dive into how, you know, buyer or seller's loan books are repricing. You know, what's the effect of higher rates going to have on those books and things like that. So I think the marks that you're doing are pretty heavy. So I just, you know, for us, you know, we're focused on, you know, building our capital base right now because we just think it's too tough an environment right now to do any type of M&A.

Okay, got it. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Your next question is from Terry McEvoy from Stevens.

Please ask your question.

Hi, thanks. Good afternoon, everybody. Hey, Terry. Maybe could you just talk about loan pipelines, confidence in that mid-single-digit growth rate over the remainder of the year, and do you think that growth will continue to come from kind of multifamily and metro Ohio markets and some of the other categories that Dennis talked about earlier?

Yeah, Terry, this is Chuck. You know, pipelines are actually pretty good right now. You know, when I compare it to last year, our pipeline right now is actually higher than it was last year sitting at the same time. Now, I would tell you that our pull-through rates have not been quite as strong as they were in the past just because we're really trying to be very mindful of margin and holding rates at, you know, well above 8, you know, as far as new originations on most, especially real estate deals. So our fulton rate hasn't been what it has been. We're still seeing really good, strong demand, especially in the multifamily area. Obviously, coinless can't build units fast enough, but we're seeing really good growth in Cincinnati and Cleveland, too, as far as the metro markets, and we've got some stuff coming on both in Toledo and Dayton, too. I would say that the five major metro markets are doing well on the multifamily side. We really haven't seen really any what I would call rate concessions or rate pressures across any of our categories so far. And we're really seeing, especially in the multifamily area, most stuff as it's coming on, efforts being built, the rents are actually higher than what's being projected in the appraisal. So you feel pretty good about where we sit here and in Ohio and southeast Indiana and northern Kentucky. We feel like the demand's still pretty strong. You know, the one thing that I think we talked about last call, you know, it's taking a little bit more equity in these projects to get them to work from a cash flow perspective.

But, you know, the bigger developers are willing to put that extra cash in and make them work.

That's great. Thanks for the color there. As a follow-up, I know this is a tough question. How are you thinking about the non-interest-bearing funds coming out of the tax refund processing program that was $19.5 million last quarter? Should we kind of model out $20 million per quarter going forward, or was the first quarter a bit outsized in your view?

Well, that's probably fair. I think at the end of the March, we had about $31 million left in there, Terry. Okay. We're... kind of at the mercy, if you will, of the tax processing partner that we have. I mean, they're at some point going to move that money out. But we thought that was going to happen in December, and I guess we're fine if they want to leave it because it's free money to us. But right now, the conversation is that that would be gone sometime in the second quarter.

And just one last quick one. The $1.2 million of overdraft service charge revenue that's lost this year, is that fully captured in the 1Q run rate or is there incrementally more to come down a bit in the remainder of the year?

I would say that our first quarter is typically our highest NSF quarter post-holidays. So if we had $375,000 less of NSF income in the first quarter, it's going to be something less than that. And over the course of 12 months, we're kind of projecting the 1.2.

Thanks for taking my questions.

Have a good day. Thanks, sir.

Thank you. Your next question is from Kim Seltzer from KBW. Please ask your question.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Hi, Tim. I had a follow-up on your loan commentary. I think you guys raised your guidance expectation from Lowe's low single digit last quarter to mid single digits. And I think I remember you guys mentioning something about, you know, it sounds like the competitive environment was getting a little bit more intense last quarter. Have you seen that moderate a little bit? And is that maybe what drove, you know, the upside to guidance here?

I think all along, Tim, we were projecting, you know, mid single digits, you know, that 5%, 6% range, 5% I think is what we focused on. And we have seen a little bit of Relief, not a lot. There's a lot of competitors out there. As we talked about, I think, last call, we've seen a lot of competitors come back bidding Treasury Plus as compared to kind of really looking at cost of funds more so with the inverted yield curve. That put us in a little bit of a competitive disadvantage. But all in all, as you know, the 5 and 10 have actually come back up a little bit in this first quarter and into the second quarter. So that Treasury Plus has gotten a little closer to what we're offering. But I just feel like we really haven't changed our guidance thing. At least I don't feel that way after the first quarter results.

Well, the only thing I'd add to that, Tim, is that the governor really on our loan growth is our ability to fund that loan growth. And again, we're disciplined in how the loan guys price those. But as big an impediment to growing our balance sheet as competition is our ability to fund that.

Can you guys remind us what percent of your loans are floating rate and how you'd expect loan yields to trend in a downward rate environment and then maybe what the overall impact on the NIM would be if we just got maybe one or two basis cuts towards the end of the year?

Well, we think that will benefit us.

The rate cuts probably benefit us a little bit because, again, we've been funding some of that with overnight borrowings. So, you know, those have been trending kind of upwards. I think they were up $30 million from $12.31 to $3.31. So we would benefit from that. And, you know, we also have, you know, more loans repricing. You know, a lot of our loans are tied to, you know, 75% of our book are more tied to treasuries. And those, even if short-term rates come up, it looks like the yield curve is trying to correct itself a little bit, and those treasury rates are higher. So as that book reprices, we should benefit some.

Just to kind of give you some raw numbers. A little over 25% of our book is floating daily from that perspective, Tim. When we started out the year, we did a deep dive and we had about $140 million that we're going to reprice in 2024, of which only $15 million of that was repricing in the first quarter. So when Dennis mentioned earlier that we feel good about some of the repricing and some of the margin help in the second half of the year, you know, out of that 140 million, you know, 93 million of them is going to be moving in the second half of the year.

Great. Appreciate all the detail. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Your next question is from Manuel Neves from DA Davidson. Please ask your question.

Hey. I think a lot of my questions have been answered, but could you help quantify the potential size of the wealth management opportunity? You said it was $75 million in the third quarter. Is there more after that or just that amount?

Well, this is Rich. It would be just a transaction. Those deposits are sitting in our wealth department now. Once we get the mechanics of that squared away, we'll just move that money over to the bank. And it's not going to be super cheap money, but it will be certainly less than what we borrowed overnight at.

And then I would add that we mentioned those two initiatives, but there are a number of other initiatives that we think that we'll be able to add deposits. I mean, we have a, you know, we're looking at all our public funds in the markets where we have branches. We're looking at schools and libraries and municipalities and counties money and stuff, and we're proactively going to be reaching out and getting a little bit more aggressive to get maybe a little bit more of that funding. We have a number of – we've pulled a number of reports, for instance, with customers with lending with no or little loans or deposit relationships. We'll be targeting those customers and stuff. But I think there's a number of initiatives underway in addition to the state of Ohio's Homebuyer Plus program and that wealth program that we think can have an immediate impact on our funding costs. I wouldn't say immediate. Well, over time, over the next year, I would say, as I mentioned in my remarks, over the next year.

Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press store 1 on your telebound keypad. Your next question is from Daniel Tredanus from Janie Montgomery Scott. Please ask your question.

Good afternoon, guys. A couple questions on the fee income side. I mean, I appreciate all the color that you guys have given, and it sounds like you're working to try to patch up some of the holes that have been created. But how should we think of a good run rate for you guys on a go-forward basis?

So if we had $8.5 million for the quarter, again, I think the wild card in there right now for us is mortgage banking. Again, we're coming into probably the best time for that. I'll let Chuck talk about it, but I don't... I guess the other wild card is at least the fees related to our leasing. And again, I guess we're a year into it, but we're still... Those are some pretty lumpy revenues, depending on when pieces of equipment get sold and whatnot. But I'll let Chuck talk about mortgage banking a little bit.

Well, Dan, we... Our first quarter production and mortgages, even though it doesn't show as well on that gain on sale, we did about $10 million more in production in the first quarter this year as compared to the first quarter last year. We feel like we've got a really solid pipeline there. We're still limited a little bit in Ohio in just the amount of inventory that's out there. It's just we've got a lot of pre-approvals and people can't still buy houses. But we have put a concerted effort going into this year about getting more of our production being saleable as compared to portfolio. Obviously, the construction piece and our CRA piece have to go on the books, but the rest of the stuff we're really pushing towards more of a saleable product. And it seems like the consumer is getting a little bit more adjusted to having higher rates. I mean, a lot of people still don't want to come off a 3% rate to get to a 7% rate. But people have actually been holding off, you know, making a move or starting to come into the marketplace because they just need to. And it doesn't look like the rates are going to come down, you know, in the real near-distant future.

Well, in the spring and summer months, the volume should be up. So, you know, optimistic there. Also, we did create a syndication desk at our leasing company, which I think will help us with some of that gain on sale because that's going to be their sole function to work our relationships and get us the best pricing so that our gains improve, the cadence will happen, get us in some sort of cadence where that's happening a little bit quicker and things. So that was another one of our initiatives that we looked at was how do we – maybe do a little bit better. We're going to incentivize, you know, who's running that area based on the bigger gains that he can get. You know, he'll have a chance to earn a little bit of income and stuff. But that was another initiative that we undertook in the first quarter.

The only thing I'd add, we talked about the NSFPs being down $375,000, but our service charges were only down about $300,000. So we made that up with higher service charges. And that's something we put in place during the quarter.

Right. We only had one month of benefit on our service charge. We did increase some service charges across the board. And we really only had one month of March was the only real month of benefit there. So we are trying to offset some of that lost revenue, you know, various ways.

So it sounds like maybe you can stay flattish and Q2 and then start building up from there modestly. Yeah. Okay. And then how should I... I'm sorry.

Dan, I was going to say the wild card of that a little bit too is just our swap income. It kind of bounces up and down depending on our borrower's appetite for... We did quite a few what I would call mid- to short-term... swaps in the fourth quarter. I think we generated $475,000 in the fourth quarter. A lot of people jumping on a three-year swap at that time. The way the yield curve's been bouncing around, that hasn't been as appealing to some of our borrowers. But depending on how the inversion of the yield curve goes over the next few months, we might be able to pick up a little more swap income, too.

That can be lumpy, right? All right.

And then tax rate for you guys, how should we be thinking about that?

It came in a lot lower than we thought it would this time. Our effective rate was just under 12% this quarter, but we've always kind of said 15% or 16%, and I think that's what I'd model. I don't know what the tax preference items were, and I should, that drove that down this quarter, but that's about as low as we've ever seen it. I should know the answer to that. You waited until the very last question to ask me, and one night I didn't know the answer to it.

No problem. No problem. All right.

I'll stop there and step back. Thank you, guys. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Dan.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Dennis Schaefer for the closing remarks.

Well, in closing, I just want to thank everyone for joining. and those that have participated in the call today. Again, while we are not pleased with our first quarter, we are confident that our strong core deposit franchise and just our disciplined approach to pricing deposits and managing the company positions as well for future success. So I look forward to talking to you all again in a few months to share our second quarter results. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect.