I used to support abolishing the Secretary of State and Treasurer’s Office. But some people pointed out some new information to me. Looking at it further, I realized something – I was wrong.
AJR 26 is the proposal to abolish the Secretary of State and the State Treasurer. 20 Representatives and 3 Senators are cosponsoring the proposal.
Wisconsin’s State Treasurer makes $68,556 – as does the Secretary of State.
This is a relatively low salary compared to other states (Nebraska – $85,000, Rhode island – $99,214). More importantly, it is low compared to the appointed offices.
Take the Office of the Commissioner of Railroads ($80,000-$125,000). The department has 6 employees (4 less than the Treasurers Office). The Commissioner of Railroads salary, like all other “administrator” salaries, is determined by Wis. Stat. 20.923. 20.923 creates ten “Executive Salary Groups” (ESGs) to “establish a consistent and equitable salary setting mechanism for all elected officials, appointed state agency heads, division administrators and other executive-level unclassified positions.”
“Administrators” are classified into the ESGs that have defined salary ranges. ESG 1 includes positions such as the Executive Secretary of the Art Board, and the State Law Library Librarian. These positions tend to be not widely known. ESG 5 is the Railroad Commissioner, State Fair Park Director, and other more well known positions. ESG 8 includes powerful positions such as the Secretary of Administration (with a department budget of over $1 billion), Secretary of Health Services ($8.7 billion), and the Chancellor of UW-Madison. ESG 9 is only for the President of the entire UW System. No appointed official is in ESG 10.
Elected officials salaries are based on the ESG, but instead of having a floating salary range, they receive a fixed salary based on the ESG group minimum. The Secretary of State, and the State Treasurer is assigned to ESG 1 and his salary is “15.4% of the minimum of the salary range” for ESG 1 – which works out to $68,556. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction gets 27.4% above the minimum for ESG 7 or around $120,000. The Governor gets 21.6% above the minimum for ESG 10 which makes him over $140,000.
If the Treasurer were no longer to be elected, the functions would still continue presumably under the Department of Administration. Most likely these 10 FTE employees would need a supervisor, who would likely be assigned an ESG. Even if the ESG was just ESG 1 – the person who would replace the State Treasurer could make just under $100,000.
Abolishing the Treasurer would not save any money – rather it would give someone a raise of about $30,000.
If we wanted to save money – we could consolidate departments rather than eliminate elected officials. What if we gave the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (department head makes $90k-$140k), to the State Treasurer, and the State Historical Society (director makes $195,000) to the Secretary of State? This may not be the best alignment – but a framework like this can help us come to a better answer.
BTW for some fun trivia: any guesses on who is the highest paid state employee in Wisconsin? The Governor isn’t ($137,092), nor is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ($152,495). It’s not even any of the 12 executive staff members of the State Investment Board ($307,007 to $560,461). It’s UW Football Coach Brett Bielema ($2.5 million).
[...] including New Jersey. Not only will getting rid of the Secretary of State and Treasurer end up costing Wisconsin taxpayers more, but it could lead to the elimination of an elected Attorney General as [...]
Pingback by Today the Treasurer, Tomorrow the Attorney General? « RandyMelchert.com — October 6, 2011 @ 2:38 pm
Hi Randy I hope this finds you well. let me give you my perspective. Edvest is a 10 person board and a team of one director Jim Diuillio. If the walker administration hired anyone new to handle this then I would be amazed and very disappointed. The program uses outside paid overseers as well. A new administrator would be twiddling his thumbs all day
Lgip could be privatized and cost the state 0 saving 150,000 a year. Indiana does this and it has a 5 yr track record of flawlessness. If anyone”administrator was “hired” rather than just added to their existing duties that also would be a waste. in my office this was a one man program and I never performed oversight of them. Thats how good our software is. not one angry phone call from any city while I had it
You are not factoring in that Wisconsin holders of our citizens property is abysmal. My constituents money is being held by scofflaw companies that ignore reporting. To date only 6000 reports have come in for the year. If enforcement was under DOR incoming money to the fund would soar. I am working on this and will have an important announcement soon to improve holder reporting while we still have a treasurer. Money saved is also money that comes in increasing the size and benefit of the total fund.
finally unclaimed property is all in the claims people. an existing director or administrator could provide them with the little bit of help they need now and then. No new hire is needed
savings my salary, my deputies strategy, cost of lgip if privatized_total savings 300,000 annually
Total increase in revenue for enforcement of holder reporting is incalcuable but substantial
Thanks for allowing me to provide you with this insight. As always your friend and compatriot in philosophy
Kurt Schuller State Treasurer
Comment by kurt schuller — October 6, 2011 @ 5:45 pm