Treasurer Emeritus Remembrances

As part of NAST’s 50^th anniversary, we have invited former State Treasurers to submit remembrances. Today is our first one from Treasurer Emeritus Dan Ebersole. He was the Georgia State Treasurer from 1997-2010, President of NAST in 2002, and Chair of the CSPN Executive Board from 2008-09.

Dear Colleagues:

As financial leaders, State Treasurers know that uncertainty results in delay and inaction. This was the case in 2004 with 529 college savings plans: the tax advantages included in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 were scheduled to expire in 2011.  State Treasurers and 529 plan directors understood that this cloud of uncertainty was causing parents to slow their contributions into 529 plans.

In December 2004, at the Treasury Management Training Symposium in Scottsdale, Arizona, a group of NAST and CSPN leaders decided to tackle this issue by seeking to remove the sunset provision. We called this effort 529 permanency, and I was named to spearhead the effort.

We realized that we needed help in Washington to develop a legislative strategy and advocate on Capitol Hill. We engaged Williams & Jensen with Susan Hirschmann as our primary advisor. Working together, we developed and introduced S. 1112 and H.R. 2386.

We focused on getting co-sponsors for these bills to demonstrate strong bipartisan support for permanency, resulting in 74 Senators and 129 House members signing on to support the bills. Then we needed to find a moving vehicle to attach our bill. We identified the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and President Bush signed it into law on August 17, 2006.

This was a significant achievement for NAST and CSPN, but most of all it benefited families saving for the college education of their children.

What are the lessons from this successful NAST and CSPN initiative?

It was vital that State Treasurers and 529 program directors agreed completely on the importance and urgency of the permanency initiative.

One of NAST’s strengths is its bipartisanship. Each State Treasurer and 529 program director had relationships in Washington, DC, that could be tapped to gain co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle. We didn’t give up. It took over 18 months to achieve our goal, but every week we added co-sponsors, demonstrating progress.

Finally, we couldn’t have achieved permanency without the targeted assistance of the Wiliams & Jensen team.

I know we will continue to achieve our goals in this bipartisan tradition. Congratulations on 50 years of legislative success!

Sincerely,

Dan Ebersole