The State of Wisconsin: Supporting our Veterans
With Memorial Day having just passed, I hope that everyone had the opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices made by the young men and women who serve in the armed forces. These individuals deserve our support, and I’m happy to say that the State of Wisconsin has taken steps to assist our veterans.
The Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs provides veterans with an easy to access list of benefits, as well as detailed eligibility requirements. Among other benefits, veterans in Wisconsin have cheaper access to state parks, lower cost educational opportunities, and access to job retraining grants. In some cases, Wisconsin will partner with the federal government to better serve our veterans. One such example is the Troops to Teachers program, itself a partnership between U.S. Departments of Defense and Education with state branches throughout the country. This program provides stipends (and possibly bonuses) to offset the cost of teacher licensing if the veteran agrees to teach in a low income area.
Wisconsin already has a very good reputation among the states for both the breadth and depth of its veterans affairs services, and state legislators want to maintain and build on that reputation. Two bills currently working their way through the legislature bear particular notice.
SB84, jointly written by Representative Kevin Peterson and Senator Dave Hansen would grant non-remarried surviving spouses of veterans who died of a service related disability eligibility for a property tax credit. The bill is currently in the Senate’s Committee for Economic Development and Veterans and Military Affairs. Its Assembly companion should be introduced soon, and in its current draft form is known as LRB 1537/1 .
AB60, which has been introduced by Representative Karl Van Roy, and is co-sponsored by several members of the Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, aims to fix an inefficiency in government. The bill expands County Blanket Bonds to include County Veterans Service Officers and County Veterans Service Commissions along with other county officials, such as the Sheriff, Treasurer, County Clerk, etc. This means that these individuals and commissions would have the same indemnity as other county officials, and would no longer have to have a separate bond. AB60 has passed the Assembly, and is currently awaiting action in the Senate.
Kids get into the MKE for less Saturday (5-28)
Wisconsin’s College Savings Plan is celebrating 5-29 Day a little early this year – since Saturday is a better zoo day for the family!
Promotions are taking place across the country to celebrate 5-29 Day in an effort to remind parents
Image via Wikipedia
to start thinking about and joining a 529 plan which offers tax advantages while saving for your child’s future!
EdVest is again partnering with the Milwaukee County Zoo to offer the first 529 kids age 3-12 a reduced admission price of $5.29. However, this year 5-29 Day will actually take place on Saturday, May 28th, the first day of the long holiday weekend.
In addition, the EdVest Team will have the EdVest Prize Wheel at the Zoo for kids to spin and win a fun prize, as well as information on the program to share with parents.
This annual event is popular, so families are encouraged to come early. If you cannot make it but want to learn more about EdVest, Tomorrow’s Scholar and college savings, please visit www.edvest.com.
Just yesterday, savingforcollege.com ranked Wisconsin’s College Savings Plan as #1 among advisor-sold 529plans. You can read more about that by heading to www.statetreasury.wisconsin.com and clicking on the MEDIA tab.
Wisconsin’s College Savings Plans Rank Tops in the Country
Great news this afternoon from savingforcollege.com
You can read the news release by clicking here and the article by clicking here.
Wisconsin Through the Windshield
The Unclaimed Property Tour is underway and I am hitting the road trying to make sure Wisconsin Residents check the database and see if we are holding their forgotten cash.
In the past few weeks, I’ve seen the La Crosse Area, the Northern Milwaukee suburbs, the Dells and this past Monday, Waupaca, Wautoma, Montello and Ripon.
When we get into some of the smaller towns, it’s nice to meet and talk with people about the State Treasurer’s Office and look to see if they or their relatives have any cash that they forgot about, misplaced or just didn’t know they had coming to them! In Onalaska, I spoke with one woman who, after searching her maiden name, discovered she had $15,000 coming to her!
What other elected official can tell the voters that he’s giving them back their money?
While in Wautoma Monday, I spoke to a man whose name was in the system but he was listed as living in Poynette. He hadn’t lived there but his parents had and his sister did. The unclaimed property was a life insurance demutualization and he didn’t think it was his since he didn’t have that life insurance. As he walked out, I found his sister in there for the same kind of property and same Poynette address. I ran to stop him and he then remembered that his parents once talked about a life insurance policy they had taken out on both him and his sister. Well..the claim forms are now being filed out and if it is them, both he and his sister will be getting a good amount of money!
I’m in La Crosse, Westby, Viroqua and Tomah today (5/25) and New Richmond, River Falls and Hudson tomorrow (5/26). These are all libraries.
I’ll be sharing more stories from the road as I travel and see Wisconsin Through the Windshield!
As always…check our website 24/7 to see if you have money we are holding. www.statetreasury.wisconsin.gov
May EBay Auction Starts Monday May 23rd!
Our monthly EBay Auction will kick off at Noon (central) on May 23rd and last until Memorial Day, Noon (central).
You can get a sneak peak and start pricing out bids by clicking here. You will find an entire list of the 30 lots on that page plus be able to sign up for our email list…you’ll know several days before everyone else when the auction will start and what will be up for bid!
This year, we’ve already broken sales records in just 4 months…you can thank the price of gold for that.
Best part about it: all the money goes right back into the Unclaimed Property accounts of the original owners waiting for them or their heirs to claim it.
Bid often starting Monday!
Image via CrunchBase
Sales of Unclaimed Property on EBay Hit New Records
Since November of 2009, the Office of State Treasurer has been selling the contents of unclaimed safety deposit boxes on EBay every month. Prior to that, the sales were 4 times a year starting in 2007. And before that, the office had live auctions.
With gold and silver prices as high as they are, we are seeing our sales in the monthly auction break new records. Since January of 2011, we have sold nearly $85,000 worth of unclaimed property in the auction – April’s total hit $32,000! It helped that we sold a Cartier Pin appraised
at $2,000 and several rings that totaled $1,500 a piece last month. But, for a little perspective, in 2010, our total sales hit $120,000! Most of the sales, though, are collectible coins…plenty of silver Morgans and Peace dollars and, occasionally, gold dollars from the 1800’s.
Each year, all banks
across the state send us the contents of safe deposit boxes they consider “abandoned”. These boxes have been at the bank for 5 years with unpaid rent and fees. Once we get the contents, we inventory and place them in the vault for another 3 years after advertising the names of the owners in the county of their last known address. So, when we sell these items, they have been abandoned for 8 years…minimum. To be honest, we are selling items that have been abandoned for nearly 10 years now. That’s how much we have. But, we are selling more items monthly and are catching up.
The money from the EBay sales goes into the Unclaimed Property account, which is now at $405 million, and sits there with all the other unclaimed funds we are holding, waiting to be claimed by the rightful owner. So, while the sales are breaking records, the money will only stay in our possession until it is claimed. Like all unclaimed assets held by the State Treasury, it can never be used for general purpose funding.
You can sign up for an email alerting you of our auction monthly by clicking here and you can visit our EBay Page by clicking here.
The May auction will begin sometime the week of May 23rd and will feature plenty of coins for collectors.
Success on the Road Returning Cash!
From Friday May 13th thru Sunday May 15th, I was on tour with the Unclaimed Property Database. We met with plenty of people who came to search for cash at 5 libraries, the Baraboo Fair on the Square, and the the Riverside Family Fun Fair in La Crosse. We were able to meet with several hundred people and will return to them nearly $15,000 in cash – money they had at some point forgotten about, misplaced or didn’t even know they had!
You can see some of the media coverage by heading to our YouTube Channel – www.youtube.com/theWIStateTreasury
One of the people we met had overpaid their mortgage…she told us that some months she double paid in order to take care of the loan quicker. But she moved and got a new mortgage and after closing didn’t realize she had sent an extra check. The company sent the money to her old address but, since she had moved, the check went back to the company. They turned it over to us after a small amount of time and now we will give it to her. This was more than $2,000!
We hear this a lot while on tour: “No…I don’t need to check for my name…I don’t have any missing money.” When we finally convince them to give us their name and we do find they have money, they can’t believe it! While no one wants to “misplace” cash and assets, it does happen more frequently than one would think…or hope! This is why we take the database on tour and we always remind people to search for their cash online at www.statetreasury.wi.gov – it’s a free service and, as we love to say, “It’s Your Money!”
Treasury Notes May 2011
Here’s a link to the most recent Treasury Notes, published today.
Highlights include:
Social Media for governmental agencies
How Unclaimed Property Gets To the Office of State Treasurer
Events scheduled through Mid-June
OST’s Unclaimed Property Unit hits the road!
Spring has finally come to Wisconsin, and with it, the onset of the Unclaimed Property Unit’s busiest season. Longer days and easier travel enable me and my staff to travel the state returning money to its rightful owners. Recently, I had the pleasure of helping attendees at RSVP’s Onalaska Wellness Expo find missing money. One lady found $15,000!
You could be next. Below are the dates and places that I’ll be visiting in May. If you can’t make it to one of these events, please take advantage of the searchable Unclaimed Property database available on our website at http://www.statetreasury.wisconsin.gov/ .
Friday, May 13
Menomonee Falls: 9-10 A.M. Menomonee Falls Public Library (W156 N8436 Pilgrim Rd)
Germantown: 10:30-11:30 A.M. Germantown Public Library (N112 W16957 Mequon Rd.)
Brown Deer: Noon-1:30 P.M. Brown Deer Public Library (4800 West Green Brook Dr.)
Whitefish Bay: 2-3:30 P.M. Whitefish Bay Library (5420 N. Marlborough Blvd)
Mequon: 4-6 P.M. Frank L. Weyenberg Public Library (11345 North Cedarburg Rd.)
Saturday, May 14
Baraboo: 9 A.M. – 4:00 P.M. Baraboo Fair on the Square (Courthouse Square, 505 Broadway St)
Sunday, May 15
La Crosse: Noon – 4:00 P.M. La Crosse Riverside Family Fun Fair (Riverside Park, 410 Veterans Memorial Dr)
Friday, May 20
Portage: 10:30 A.M. – Noon Portage Public Library (253 W Edgewater St.)
Baraboo: 1-2:30 P.M. Baraboo Public Library (230 Fourth Ave.)
Wisconsin Dells: 3:30-4:30 Kilbourn Public Library (620 Elm St.)
Monday, May 23
Waupaca: 9-10 A.M. Waupaca Area Public Library (107 South Main St.
Wautoma: 11:30 A.M. – 1:00 P.M. Wautoma Public Library (410 West Main St.)
Montello: 2-3:30 P.M. Montello Public Library (128 Lake Ct)
Ripon: 5-6 P.M. Ripon Public Library (120 Jefferson St.)
Wednesday, May 25
La Crosse: 9-11 A.M. La Crosse Public Library (899 Main St.)
Westby: Noon-1 P.M. Bekkum Memorial Library (206 North Main St.)
Viroqua: 2-3 P.M. McIntosh Memorial Library (118 E Jefferson St.)
Tomah: 5:30-7 P.M. Tomah Public Library (716 Superior Ave)
Thursday, May 26
New Richmond: 11:00 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. Friday Memorial Library (155 East 1 St.)
River Falls: 1:30-3 P.M. River Falls Public Library (140 Union St.)
Hudson: 4-6 P.M. Hudson Area Library (700 First St.)
Extra Cash Doesn’t Mean it Should Be Spent
I am encouraged by the new estimates from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau showing a $636 million increase in tax revenues over the next 3 years but adds that this good news shouldn’t mean a spending increase in governmen programs.
The people who control the purse strings need to keep a few things in mind.
1) The projected increase is only 1.6% in total revenue collection over 3 years.
2) The LFB states the increase in revenues is due to large gains in the stock market. The unpredictability of the stock market could greatly affect the projected increase.
3) Changes to government employee retirement contributions within Act 10 could lower tax revenue increases by $40 million per year starting this year. This is due to the fact the contributions can be made pre-tax as opposed to post tax.
While this report is good news for our state, I urge our legislators to pause, take a deep breath and not rush to spend this money.
You can read the report from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau by clicking here.
Social Media as a Tool for Treasury Outreach
My Community Services Specialist, Ron Giordan, recently presented at the National Association of State Treasurer’s Management Training Symposium. Here is a blog from him on the presentation, as well as what he learned from the event.
Prior to presenting, Brooke Bredel, PR and Marketing Specialist for the Virginia Department of the Treasury Division of Unclaimed Property, and I sent out a survey to other communication specialists at state treasuries across the country. We wanted to get their views on social media as an application for outreach in their departments. What we discovered wasn’t very shocking – Click here to see the presentation and see the survey results.
Image via CrunchBase
More than 34% of the nearly 100 respondents do not use Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn. Luckily, 22.5% use at least one of them once a day. 67.8% said their office or agency doesn’t use social media at all and the main reasons – “lack of time”, “fear” and “don’t think it’s a useful communication tool”. These 3 reasons are the easiest to overcome.
Lack of time: I spend about 30 to 45 minutes a day using our social media platforms to get our messages out. This is spread out during my entire day. As a marketing/outreach specialist, putting up a quick message or 5 to our followers isn’t that time-consuming. With all the other projects going on, there’s no time to waste on social media but ignoring it as a tool to tell people what the office/unit is doing is actually detrimental to our goal: getting money back in the hands of rightful owners. Imagine your office just returned a record amount of money in one day – like we did in April. I got that message out on Twitter and Facebook well before I sent the news release out. I started getting emails and phone calls from news organizations within the hour and we saw a spike in people searching for cash on our website. It took me 1 minute to type and send the message, another 10 to write that news release and send it out via email as well as link to our social media platforms; 11 minutes total to market our office? Where’s the lack of time? I use Tweetdeck to monitor all my social media sites and send messages out. It’s a huge time-saver.
Image via CrunchBase
Fear: I do understand this. There’s a lot of fear from government workers
about backlash to them using social media on work time as well as fear of people posting vile comments on Facebook pages or “tweeting” vile comments back to you. You do take that risk. I created the Facebook page for Wisconsin Unclaimed Property more than a year and a half ago and have never had vile comments posted. I did delete one comment once that pertained to the election. I prefer to not delete comments as I view social media as a way for our “customers” to have one-on-one conversations with us. I deleted that comment, though, because it attacked someone. I don’t find myself wasting time needing to go back and delete comments. And when it comes to Twitter, the feeds move so quickly that even if someone sends a nasty comment, it’s gone fairly quickly. It’s their opinion…shouldn’t we as customer service agents try to satisfy their request? Creating a policy was the best option given by Brooke from Virginia. She offered http://socialmediagovernance.com/ and http://www.socialmedia.policytool.net/as great places to start. Many State IT Departments block access to social media sites. it’s up to you as a marketer to prove to the “higher-ups” in the state bureaucracy that they are wasting time only using old media to get a message out rather than using free new media.
Not a Useful Communication Tool: I think this comes more from a lack of understanding Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn. If you don’t know how they work, then, of course, they aren’t useful. It’s not difficult to use but can be daunting if you don’t know how to spread your message using it. But social media is a “self-taught” application, for the most part. Playing around on the sites and reading what other people are doing is the best form of education in this medium.
Image via CrunchBase
While my pages are gaining followers slowly, I know people are viewing my sites regularly. They might not be constantly following but my messages are getting read. What’s the ROI on using social media as a form of outreach? When we are returning record amounts of money each month and last year returned $32 million after I started using Twitter and Facebook, I know the return on investment is high. The investment is so small compared to the large amount of information you can send out using social media as outreach. We still perform the outreach events across the state where we help people search the database; face-to-face communication is still the best way to get the message out. But, this added layer of social media is an efficient way to help the people we serve.
Honoring Law Enforcement
Too often we go about our lives without showing proper appreciation for those that keep us safe – the men and women of law enforcement. Last Friday, May 6th, the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial held their annual gathering in front of the State Capitol, which allowed me to reflect on the bravery of those who risk their lives everyday to keep us safe. The ceremony was particularly prescient in the aftermath of Fond du Lac Police Officer Craig Birkholz’s death in the line of duty earlier this year.
This morning, I was able to participate in the Sauk County Law Enforcement Officers Association’s Respect for Law Ceremony. I was honored to be able to speak and show my support for law enforcement not only in Sauk County, but across the state.
Please take some time today to remember the sacrifices made by these brave men and women who run toward danger so that the rest of us can be safe.
Treasurer Schuller’s statement on yesterday’s JFC vote
“I am disappointed with the vote by the Joint Finance Committee that removes two key units from the Treasurer’s Office and places them at the Department of Administration. This multi-billion dollar transfer that moves the Wisconsin College Savings Program and the Local Government Investment Pool away from my purview takes voters out of the process.”
“I ran for office on a pledge to eliminate the Treasurer’s office via a change to the Wisconsin Constitution. I have offered the joint resolution to do that to the legislature and it is gaining momentum. I have always been confident the resolution would pass, and that voters would choose to eliminate the office via a referendum by 2013. The piecemeal removal of Treasury functions is not what I intended. I have always wanted the voters to decide what would happen with this office. Now, the voters will have no real choice to make when the referendum comes before them because the office has been made into a shell of what it once was.”
Wisconsin State Treasury 
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