California State Treasurer

State Treasurer of California
Seal of the State Treasurer of California
Incumbent Fiona Ma since January 7, 2019
Style	The Honorable
Term length	Four years, two term limit
Inaugural holder	Richard Roman 1849
Formation	California Constitution
Salary	$146,896 (2019)
Website	www.treasurer.ca.gov

The state treasurer of California is a constitutional officer in the executive branch of the government of the U.S. state of California. Thirty-five individuals have held of the office of state treasurer since statehood. The incumbent is Fiona Ma, a Democrat. The state treasurer's main office is located in the Jesse M. Unruh State Office Building in Sacramento.

Election and term of office

The state treasurer assumes office by way of election. The term of office is four years, renewable once. Elections for state treasurer are held on a four-year basis concurrently with elections for the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state controller, insurance commissioner, and superintendent of public instruction.

Powers and duties

As California's chief banker, financier and investor, the state treasurer's role is broadly concerned with the state's cash management, debt management, and investment management activities. As such, the state treasurer:

• Manages the collection, accounting, deposit and use of moneys and securities received by the state. Centralizing cash and securities management within the state treasury allows for better monitoring of the state's cash flow and liquidity, thereby allowing the state of California to more effectively pay its bills and invest idle funds.
• Coordinates banking services across state government. This function entails designating banks and other depository institutions as eligible to receive public deposits, ensuring public depositories have sufficient collateral, and administering California's Time Deposit Program.
• Safeguards public deposits, paying out state funds only on warrants drawn by the state controller or pursuant to other vouchers submitted to and approved by the state controller.
• Issues bonds, notes, and other instruments of indebtedness on behalf of the state and acts as trustee, registrar, and paying agent for all general obligation and revenue bonds issued by his or her office.
• Invests all state funds other than pension funds - including California's ABLE, college savings and retirement savings programs, which are administered by the state treasurer's office - along with state and local government investment funds. California's public pensions are invested by the respective boards of trustees of California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System. The state treasurer is an ex officio member of both boards.
• Chairs the Tax Credit Allocation Committee, which awards hundreds of millions of dollars annually in tax credits for affordable housing, and serves as an ex officio board member of the California Housing Finance Agency, which finances affordable housing.
• Chairs or serves on dozens of boards and commissions, most of which relate to the marketing of bonds and their management. The bonds so issued finance a wide range of significant projects, including pollution clean-up, transportation infrastructure, renewable energy, fish and wildlife conservation, economic development, affordable housing, student loans, school buildings, small businesses, nonprofits, and health care facilities.

History

The Office was retained as an elective office in the New Constitution of 1879, in recognition by the Workingman's Party (which factored heavily in the State's constitutional convention) that The Treasurer had a significant impact of local credit guidance under the National Bank system established by the Lincoln Administration. Transcontinental cash settlements were still restricted, so California's local development was driven by a relatively high-proportion of local gold reserve deposits. In 1907, the State Treasurer was instrumental in a massive expansion of credit to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 Earthquake, however, at that time the Treasurer was essentially an office controlled by the railroads. In 1907, the expansion of California money supply lead by the Treasurer selling bonds to build the Port of San Francisco seawall exposed liquidity problems due to corruption in the New York Clearinghouse, causing the Panic of 1907.

Progressive governor Hiram Johnson left the office essentially untouched. Of the office, he had this to say in his first inaugural:

The most advanced thought in our nation has reached the conclusion that we can best avoid blind voting and best obtain the discrimination of the electorate by a short ballot. A very well known editor in our State, during a recent lecture at Stanford University, challenged the faculty of that great institution to produce a single man who had cast an intelligent vote for the office of State Treasurer, and none was produced. Fortunately our State Treasurer is the highest type of citizen and official. The reason the challenge could not be met was that, in the hurry of our existence and in the engrossing importance of the contests for one or two offices, we can not or do not inform ourselves sufficiently regarding the candidates for minor offices... If we can remedy this condition it is our duty to do so, and it is plain that the remedy is by limiting the elective list of offices to those that are naturally conspicuous.

The creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 significantly restricted the power of the State Treasurer to influence local economic development, essentially centralizing National Monetary policy. During the First World War, this was deployed toward War Mobilization. Still, State Bond issuance for major infrastructure projects characterized the office into the 1960s, including bonds for the State Parks System in the 20's, to build facilities for the 1932 Olympic Games, for the Postwar expansion of the University of California and State University Systems, for the State Water Project of 1960, and for the massive expansion of the State Prison System in the 1980s. As California's population and economy expanded, the Local Agency Investment Fund became a significant market player, and the Office developed the capacity to bail out troubled corporations by buying up their bond issuances.

Ivy Baker Priest stands out as the first woman to be elected to any California statewide office from 1967 to 1975, having already served as Eisenhower's Treasurer of the United States in the 1950s. She was famous for aphorisms, including "We women don't care too much about getting our pictures on money as long as we can get our hands on it." With the election of Kathleen Brown in 1990 as a Democrat, the Democratic-lead legislature significantly expanded the scope and duties of the office; however, the Orange County Bankruptcy also lead the legislature to significantly curtail the permissible investment policies of Treasurer-administered pooled local investments. Although the Treasurer has nominal advisory authority over local debt issuance, the Treasurer was powerless to prevent local government entities such as Stockton or San Bernardino from falling into insolvency.

List of Treasurers

Name	Term	Party
Richard Roman	1849–1854	Democratic
Selden A. McMeans	1854–1856	Democratic
Henry Bates	1856–1857	American
James L. English	1857–1858	American
Thomas Findley	1858–1862	Democratic
Delos R. Ashley	1862–1863	Republican
Romualdo Pacheco	1863–1867	Republican
Antonio F. Coronel	1867–1871	Democratic
Ferdinand Baehr	1871–1875	Republican
José G. Estudillo	1875–1880	Democratic
John Weil	1880–1883	Republican
William A. January	1883–1884	Democratic
Denis J. Oullahan	1884–1887	Democratic
Adam Herold	1887–1891	Democratic
J. R. McDonald	1891–1895	Republican
Levi Rackliffe	1895–1898	Republican
Will S. Green	1898–1899	Democratic
Truman Reeves	1899–1907	Republican
William R. Williams	1907–1911	Republican
Edward D. Roberts	1911–1915	Republican
Friend William Richardson	1915–1923	Progressive; Republican
Charles G. Johnson	1923–1956	Republican
A. Ronald Button	1956–1959	Republican
Bert A. Betts	1959–1967	Democratic
Ivy Baker Priest	1967–1975	Republican
Jesse M. Unruh	1975–1987	Democratic
Elizabeth Whitney	1987–1989
Thomas W. Hayes	1989–1991	Republican
Kathleen Brown	1991–1995	Democratic
Matt Fong	1995–1999	Republican
Phil Angelides	1999–2007	Democratic
Bill Lockyer	2007–2015	Democratic
John Chiang	2015–2019	Democratic
Fiona Ma	2019–present	Democratic

External links

• Official website