The State Senate is continuing work on a Constitutional Amendment that allows the State Treasurer to invest various state funds in common stocks. The state currently invests permanent funds in common stocks, but the state constitution does not allow such investment of other state funds.
Senator Chris Rothfuss says the return on those state funds is very low. He says this change would do a lot for the state savings.
“Not only higher yields, but we don’t have the ability to diversify as well right now based on the fixed returns that we have to get out of our pool funds. So we have a lot of money invested in an undiversified portfolio which at best gives us low yields and could still go down a little bit.”
Monday, the Senate approved an amendment that sets the percentage of a reserve account or trust fund that the State Treasurer can invest in common stocks. That percentage would require a two thirds vote by the legislature.
