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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. With all due respect to the person and the position, I bet most people couldn't name Oregon's treasurer or identify her in a photo. Further, I'm not sure even a small minority of people could accurately define what the treasurer does, but it's an incredibly important position for the state, and it's also an incredibly important resource for all Oregonians wishing to become more financially literate and financially secure. Today on the show, you'll meet Oregon's treasurer, Elizabeth Steiner, and learn more about her office and the many tools she oversees to help everyday Oregonians become better savers. In an effort to help better understand our state government, we talk with Oregon's chief financial officer. Oregon State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
ELIZABETH STEINER: I really appreciate the invitation.
MICHAEL DUNNE: When you talk to people, you know, what are some of the concerns they expressed to you, maybe both about sort of the state economy today, but also just general financial security for themselves?
ELIZABETH STEINER: For the past several years, Treasury has been conducting a financial wellness scorecard survey across the state. And what this shows us, and what we hear anecdotally from people as we chat with them, is that while in some ways, Oregonians are doing better than the national average, many Oregonians are really struggling. Almost 50% of Oregonians would have trouble finding $500 in the case of an emergency, and that's really problematic. And the other thing that they tell me when we have these conversations is that they don't know how they're going to Save As a result, for their and their children's future. Putting away money for retirement or their children's education after high school is hard, and they worry, and it has an effect, as I know as a family physician, on their physical and mental health. So, although overall, Oregon's economy is doing pretty well, we're starting to see some effects from the tariffs, but we're doing pretty well, and although our employment rate is high, people still feel the impact of inflation, of the rising cost of living, and that makes it tough for people to feel financially secure.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I would imagine, too, that a lot of people just simply maybe don't have access to financial tools, online, digitally, whatever that can kind of, you know, help guide them towards, you know, better financial stewardship, better savings opportunities. Maybe talk a little bit about how a state like Oregon can help them?
ELIZABETH STEINER: That's a great question. I'm so glad you asked. This is absolutely true. We used to teach financial literacy, financial empowerment, in our schools as a routine part of the curriculum, and unfortunately, that went by the wayside for a variety of reasons. In 2023 we passed Senate Bill three, which, starting with the High School Class of 2027 will require some financial literacy education for kids to graduate from high school in Oregon. Now that's great, and I think it's necessary, but not sufficient, because at different stages of people's lives, they need different kinds of financial tools. They need different kinds of financial education so that they can be empowered to take control of their finances and learn the ways that they can make tiny shifts in their finances that will allow them to save for the future. We have something called the Financial Empowerment advisory team at the Treasury, which my predecessor, then treasurer Reed, started, and we're working on building that out to help develop more tools. We have a page on the 211 website, as you know, 211, the information, the statewide information line. They also have a website with great links to financial literacy resources, and we want to build that out. We want to partner with nonprofits, with communities of faith, with unions, with any kind of organization that has a constituency, and help them provide that information to their constituency, since they're the trusted messengers, but we want to be sure that what they're providing is really solid, factual information that empowers people so. Well, I'm very excited to work with our team and start pushing that out more over the next year or so and changing our conversations around money. People for a long time have said, well, I can't talk about money because that just, you know, we don't talk about money, religion and politics. Well, we know that all those things aren't true, and we shouldn't be talking about money, and people should be comfortable talking about it with their family, with their friends, and having conversations that help empower all of them to do better financially.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know that you and your team are sort of launching these, these initiatives, these programs, talk about them, because I think that you know that obviously you know a click away might be some of the tools that can help families and individuals.
ELIZABETH STEINER: Absolutely, and I would encourage your listeners to take a look at the website two on one. Just go and search for financial literacy on the two on one website, because there's probably an organization that's accessible to most of your listeners that can help them start to gain some of these skills. The thing we have to be aware of is that adults learn in different ways. Some of us do much better in a group setting, in a classroom or online classroom, where we can be talking about this with other people. Some people like some kind of a gamified learning environment through an app on their phone or on their computer. Some people want to do a self-directed course online, so we need to be providing resources in lots of different ways to people, and that's one of the things that our financial empowerment advisory team will be looking at over the coming months, is what are evidence based curricula that are available in lots of different formats so that people can pick and choose what's best for them.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And I know too, that a lot of times I would imagine that many people don't think about, oh, well, maybe I should go to the state treasurer page or 211, to learn about some of these things. You know how they kind of fly under the radar for people, but like Oregon Saves. Talk about what those can do for people?
ELIZABETH STEINER: Absolutely, I'm so glad you brought that up. You know, Treasury, I will say one of the things I discovered when running for this seat is that Treasury is perhaps the least known state agency, and most people don't understand why they should care about who the treasurer is and what she's doing to help them, because we do a lot to help Oregonians. We have these savings programs that you allude to. In fact, we have a third one. We have what are commonly referred to as the college savings plan, or 529 plans, which can actually be used for almost any kind of post high school education. And one of the things that we want is to double or even more, the number of kids in Oregon who have one of these plans. And we have an incentive that I hope people will pay attention to. We are offering $100 deposit into a 529, for any family that starts one in the first year of their kid's life, or by the time their kid starts kindergarten, and we want to encourage people to open those accounts so that their kid can plan for some funds being available for their post high school education, because what We know is kids with a 529 account are 300% more likely to go to college and 700% more likely to pursue some form of post high school education, whether that's career and technical education or certificate programs or whatever these funds can be used and saving tiny amounts Early is an incredibly effective way to build up funds, and that's also true for Oregon saves, which is the statewide retirement plan for people whose employers don't offer a retirement fund, and it's just a simple payroll deduction that makes a big difference. And again, the sooner people start with that, and the more money they work on putting away, the better off they're going to be when it is time for them to retire. Because we know that Social Security, even if it stays well-funded, will not cover people's expenses in its entirety. And so it's important they have alternative savings. Finally, Oregon ABLE accounts are great. These are federally sanctioned programs that the state runs that allow people with disabilities to save for their future, to cover healthcare expenses or living expenses without those savings impacting their eligibility. Or income-based benefits. So, people currently, just for this year, people who had received a diagnosis of a disability of any kind before the age of 26 can have one of the starts one of these funds and have it grow and have family members or friends or they themselves when they're earning money, put a little bit aside for future needs. The important thing, though, is that as of January 1, 2026 so less than six months from now, that age will go up to 46 So if, for example, someone had, unfortunately, a traumatic brain injury, or, as we know is common in Oregon, someone's diagnosed with multiple sclerosis or another autoimmune disorder that leads them to have some kind of a disability, they will be able to save money and have that money available to them without it impacting their eligibility for benefits. So all of these are programs that the Treasury runs and are done basically free of charge for people and are invested in thoughtful, sensible ways so that they grow. Most of them are in what's called target date funds, the retirement plans, which and the 529, plans are in target date funds, so they're available when people need them, and it's a very reliable way for individuals, friends, family, communities, to help support people.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm wondering too about, you know, access to financial tools, as well as just overall promoting financial literacy. You know, in your opinion, how does it help with, obviously, people's financial security, but also this idea that, you know you're talking about state programs. How can the state work with private entities, banks, financial institutions, that sort of thing, to help continue to promote not only just savings, but overall financial literacy?
ELIZABETH STEINER: You know, I'll tell you two interesting things about that. I have a very close working relationship, and have for years while I was in the legislature and now as treasurer with the credit unions Association across the state and credit unions have been doing amazing work for their members, providing financial literacy, education and a variety of tools that I hope that your listeners who are members of credit unions take advantage of. And that's one great example. The other really interesting thing that I would point out is that businesses are starting to understand the value of offering this kind of education to their employees. And I'll give you two examples. Sure. The first is Delta Airlines. About two years ago, Delta started a program where they were going to provide $1,000 into a savings account for every employee worldwide below director level. So, 77,000 employees who took a two-hour financial literacy class, two hours, and they put $750 in right away, and then they'd match the next 250 that the individual put in, and the initial data out of that are really hugely attractive. They're showing increased employee retention, decreased absenteeism due to financial stresses. It's helping people build up those emergency savings. It's helping empower them to start saving for a home for all sorts of things. And yesterday, I was in the Oregon investment council meeting, and KKR, the big private equity firm, was doing a presentation, and one of the things they said, in a somewhat offhand way toward the end of the meeting was one. They are now working with many of the companies that they buy into that they obtain equity in to offer financial literacy education for the employees. So KKR is doing something really interesting. They are working with many of the companies that they buy into to help provide financial literacy education for the employees of those companies. Now, KKR is not going to invest. A big private equity firm is not going to do that if they don't see an ROI or return on investment, and they're doing it for exactly the same reasons that delta, one of the biggest airlines in the world, is doing it. Employees who don't have as much financial stress are more likely to show up for work on time consistently and be truly present doing their jobs, and they're going to feel more secure and more valued as an employee of that firm. Recruitment and training costs. Cost money, retention costs relatively little, and so it's better for companies bottom lines to have happy, financially secure employees. So, offering financial literacy classes, offering financial incentives to pursue financial literacy is something that's already being shown. So my team and I plan to partner with the with Oregon Business and Industry, with some of the small business associations, with chambers of commerce across the state, to help them work with the businesses they represent, to encourage them to do analogous things to offer these financial literacy programs, again, using the resources that our financial empowerment advisory team will be collating so they're sure they're offering evidence based curricula for their employees that will actually make a difference and help their employees be more financially secure.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, it's fascinating. Listen to you talk, because I'm realizing, and kind of going back to something you said earlier, about probably a lot of people don't necessarily know what the state treasurer does, and so I think it's fascinating talking about all these, all these programs expand upon that both explain generally what the treasurer does, but also how this component of education and access is seemingly just listening to you talk a huge part of the office.
ELIZABETH STEINER: So, Treasury has five, what I call, would call, external facing divisions. One of them that we've been talking about a bunch is our savings network. And by the way, your listeners should watch for the launch of a big program about that in September. So, keep your eyes peeled as a little teaser, and that's the one that offers the ABLE programs. Oregon saves the 529, and where we work on the Financial Empowerment piece, we also have what's called unclaimed or trust property, if you started a bank account a while ago and then kind of forgot about it and you moved and the bank couldn't figure out a way to get in touch with you. Then after a certain period of time, the bank is obligated, by law to turn those funds over to the state with as much information about you as possible, and then we hold that in trust in perpetuity, forever, so that you or your heirs can claim it back in the meantime, in earns interest, and we put that into the common school fund so that helps pay for K 12 education. So, it's kind of a win all around. So, I would encourage your listeners to go to unclaimed.oregon.gov to see if they or somebody in their family has unclaimed property that they can get back. And that's checks they didn't cash from business bank accounts, whatever. So that's the second one. The third one is debt management. We are responsible at the Treasury for selling all the bonds that the state authorizes. So, when I was in the legislature. We were responsible. I was one of the people responsible as chair of the budget committee for allocating bonds for infrastructure projects, for housing projects, for economic development projects. The Treasury sells those bonds, and we manage all of our existing debt to make sure that we're getting the best available rates for those bonds. And so that's the debt management piece. And we also help with other kinds of bond sales. But just say, let's just say we sell a lot of bonds on the order of $2 billion a year, and then the next one is our finance division. The finance division is responsible for, in some ways, serving as a banker for both the state and many local governments and school districts. We have something called the local government investment pool, a short-term fund where local governments and the state can hold their funds, and we actually get about four and a half percent interest on those funds while they're waiting to be used, right? Because taxes all come in at one time, but we don't use all that money at once, so it might as well be earning interest, and we do a really good job of managing that money on behalf of governments, and then we disperse it back out to those local governments or the state government when we need it, when they need it. And finally, where we have the investment division. The investment division is responsible for investing the Oregon Public Employee Retirement Fund, which some people might think of as PERS or the public employee retirement system. That's the but the fund is what actually pays for PERS, and that's about almost $100 billion and then we have about another 40, $42 billion of assets that we manage for things like the. Common school fund, the state Accident Insurance Fund, which is the workers comp insurance, and a variety of other smaller funds. So those are our five external facing divisions. We obviously have an internal administrative division, cyber security, all that kind of stuff, but those are the five big external facing divisions that we have.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You know, Treasurer Steiner, I'd like to ask this one last question. You know, I think all of us are sort of used to this idea that because of budget cuts at schools, you know, a lot of programs have to be cut, and we understand that. But you teed this up earlier. I just want to finish by making the case again about how important being able to teach young people some idea of financial literacy is, because it's going to pay dividends down the road. Just sort of make that case one last time.
ELIZABETH STEINER: Absolutely. I'm glad you asked. I would say this, throughout my career as a family physician, as a legislator and now as treasurer, I have been interested in upstream prevention. Financial Literacy Education is upstream prevention against financial insecurity, and if what we care about, if what we want is for Oregon to be the healthiest state in the nation, and we should all want that, because that is what's going to make all of us prosperous, then we have to be sure that we're helping every Oregonian achieve financial security. Early financial literacy, education is one of the best ways we know to help people achieve long term financial security. So, it is in the best interest of every Oregonian to make sure that we're teaching our kids how to manage money.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Good enough. Good enough. Oregon State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner, really appreciate you coming on and talking with us.
ELIZABETH STEINER: My pleasure. Ask me back anytime.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That’s the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow, on the show, it'll be raining fish. Well, actually, we'll talk with the state biologist in charge of raining fish onto Cascade lakes so that sportsmen can enjoy fishing and our wildlife have an abundant food source. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon On The Record. from KLCC. Thanks for listening.
