Research & Reports

Released April 2019, State Treasurers Count is an infographic detailing the impact of each Treasury office with stats on staffing, assets under management, investments in bonds and pensions, investments in college savings and ABLE plans, and returned unclaimed property. Below are core functions for most US Treasury offices.

• Banking operations and cash management of both receipts and disbursements
• Administration and investment of public employee retirement funds and deferred compensation funds
• Coordinating the bonding activity for general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, short-term debt and public works projects
• Management of Local Government Investment Pools that assist communities in diversifying their portfolios to obtain a higher rate of return
• Financing for economic development
• Administration of college savings programs that enable millions of Americans to save for education expenses
• Administration of unclaimed property programs that return hundreds of millions of dollars each year to millions of rightful owners

The Council of State Governments collects information about all of the state executive branches, including Treasurers. The latest data, available here, is from 2018. Archives are available here. Scroll to the Treasurers’ section (4.24-4.26) for excel spreadsheets or PDFs on the following topics:

• The Treasurers and Other Chief Financial Officers, includes information on method of selection, terms of position, dates of service, and term limits.
• Qualifications for Office, such as age, citizenship, residency, and voter registration.
• Responsibilities of the Treasurer’s Office, to find out what 15 functions a Treasurer’s office may perform.

NAST has made a commitment to offer Treasurers a comprehensive set of materials on how to start a financial literacy program, to seek financial support, and to provide the basic materials necessary to promote and publicize the initiative. Click on the links below for more information.

• State Treasurers’ Annual Census, state-by-state descriptions of financial educational programs 
• Financial Education Best Practices, an audit of curriculum and programming for grades K-12
• List of State Treasurer financial education web pages and resources for educators

Now in its 5^th year, 42 states and the District of Columbia have launched ABLE program with almost 50,000 accounts averaging $5,656 in savings for a total of $259.8 million invested nationally.

Learn the basics of ABLE with this infographic.

View the Progress and Legislative Needs report for a summary of state’s efforts and data collection.

For additional information, see the Advocacy page for more information.