Missouri State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick has been on the job for a year, and priorities ahead of him include getting a proposed cash flow fund for the state set up, as well as continuing to prioritize investments intended to help the economy and state's assets grow.
If he's elected in November to a full four-year term as state treasurer, Fitzpatrick also said last week he would like to continue to grow programs that aid Missourians with disabilities, and seek the federal government's help in returning mature, unredeemed savings bonds.
Fitzpatrick's previous election was in November 2018 to his fourth and final two-year term in the Missouri House, where he chaired the House Budget Committee in 2017 and 2018.
However, a series of successions after then-Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley was elected to be one of Missouri's U.S. senators led to Fitzpatrick taking the oath of office as the new treasurer - succeeding Eric Schmitt, who's now the state's attorney general.
The filing period for statewide candidates to appear on the Aug. 4, 2020, primary election ballot does not open until Feb. 25, but so far, Fitzpatrick's competition appears to be Vicki Englund, a Democrat from St. Louis.
Whatever happens in November for Fitzpatrick, he said he's excited by Gov. Mike Parson's proposal to establish a cash operating expense fund.
Parson wants to put $100 million left on his proposed 2020-21 budget's bottom line toward the cash operating expense fund to keep as a reserve to tap into in case of economic crisis.
He also proposed money collected from online sales taxes - a source of revenue the Legislature is pursuing to open up this session - be directed into the rainy day fund until it's solvent.
"I would like to see that get done. I think getting that bill passed and setting up that fund will put the state on stronger financial footing and help us be better prepared for changes in revenues," Fitzpatrick said of the proposal for the cash operating expense fund.
As a legislator, he said he saw volatile year-to-year swings in state revenue - up 10 percent, down 1 percent, back up 9 percent and then flat.
"This fund would basically help smooth some of that out, and it would just put the state on a more kind of stable footing in terms of dealing with those fluctuations year to year," Fitzpatrick said of the proposed fund, adding he's worked with Parson on crafting bill language for the fund.
Time deposits
Beyond reserves, Fitzpatrick said he's looking forward "to growing Missouri's investment portfolio, giving careful consideration to who and what we are investing in," according to a news release from his office this month about his first year as state treasurer and some of his priorities going forward.
He explained, the state has "gotten into commercial paper again, which will hopefully improve portfolio returns," given a low-interest rate environment that has low yields for investments.
Commercial paper is a short-term, high-liquidity debt instrument issued by corporations.
Fitzpatrick also said the state has implemented a competitive bidding process for banks to approach the state seeking time deposits.
Time deposits are when the state places money in Missouri banks for a set minimum amount of time. Banks get the benefit of having deposits available to back up loans, and the state gets to accrue interest on its money that it can then collect.
Fitzpatrick said the previous time deposit program - inactive when he took office - was more on a first-come, first-served basis in which the state advertised an interest rate it was looking for and let banks come to it.
With a competitive bidding process, the state can select banks that offer the highest interest rates, Fitzpatrick said.
"We'll try to be a good source of liquidity for those banks. We want to make sure that the banks are able to continue to lend money to businesses when there's a demand for that," he said.
He said there's probably about $20 million-$25 million time deposits, and the state is preparing to put out some longer-term time deposits - such as $10 million for one year - after banks said that shorter, 90-day deposits do not provide enough time for banks to benefit.
Benefits for Missourians with disabilities
Fitzpatrick said he also wants to continue to grow the MO ABLE program, "which is a great program for people with disabilities to be able to actually save and try to set money aside for their future, which was something that prior to MO ABLE they weren't able to do because of asset limits."
By asset limits, he meant restrictions that might have kicked people off a federal program like Medicaid for having too many assets; MO ABLE does not count toward asset limits.
"It's a game changer for people in that situation that would want to work, but that maybe couldn't work because of fear of losing their benefits," Fitzpatrick said.
MO ABLE was launched in 2017, and allows people with disabilities and their families to save up to $15,000 per year, tax-free.
In April last year, Fitzpatrick's office announced the program had reached 1,000 accounts. He said last week the program had grown by 44 percent over his first year in office, in terms of the number of accounts.
Fitzpatrick added he will continue to push federal legislators to expand eligibility to people who acquired a disability before the age of 46, instead of age 26.
He's also continuing to encourage businesses that already offer payroll deductions for MOST - Missouri's tax-advantaged, 529 education savings plans - to also offer payroll deductions for MO ABLE.
His office's news release cited Cox Health and Truman State University as institutions that have established such deductions for MO ABLE.
"I'm not a big mandate type of guy, so I think that if a business doesn't feel like they have the infrastructure in place to do that - there's a lot of small businesses out there that aren't in a position to administer a lot of payroll deductions, and I understand that," Fitzpatrick said of whether such deductions should be required by law.
He added, "We're talking about bigger employers here that are offering 529 plan deductions; adding a MO ABLE deduction wouldn't really be a big burden to them. I don't want to make it a requirement by any means, but we're certainly going to do our work to encourage people to voluntarily participate in that."
Unclaimed bonds
The state treasurer's office is responsible for returning money to Missourians from unclaimed property recovered from safe deposit boxes.
Fitzpatrick said he's also been working with federal legislators to get the U.S. Department of the Treasury to release information that could help return $438 million in mature, unredeemed savings bonds "that we believe belong to Missourians."
The bonds span from the 1930s to the 1970s, and Fitzpatrick said only the U.S. Treasury has the information on the bonds' original purchasers - which his office could use to try to track down who's entitled to that money.
"Those are people who invested in the country in a time of need, and I think the Treasury should work with the states to help see to it that the people who invested in the country get their money back," he said.