Curt Meier announces he will seek re-election
LAGRANGE – LaGrange native and Wyoming State Treasurer Curt Meier announced last week that he is seeking re-election in a second term.
In a press release, Meier’s Communications Director Bob Bonnar wrote, “He is seeking a second term because he is committed to implementing an unprecedented level of financial expertise and professionalism in the State Treasurer’s Office for the people of Wyoming.”
After serving Wyoming for 24 years as a state senator, Meier decided to run for state treasurer to help with budget concerns in 2018 and won. He began working as Wyoming State Treasurer on Jan. 7, 2019, and in that time he grew the office’s investments from $20.12 billion to more than $25 billion and provided hundreds of millions of dollars each year to Wyoming’s general fund to address both essential and special interest needs of Wyoming taxpayers.
According to a state report, some of the funding Meier’s office helped secure for these funds helped enable the state to reduce homelessness and decrease the percentage of individuals at or below the poverty line across the state, including in Goshen County, by an average of 2% during a global pandemic.
In an interview when asked about that accomplishment, Meier said, “I think it has a lot to do with the local individuals involved who were and are committed to their communities to reduce such incidents in our state.”
Meier added, “Wyoming is very much a large, close knitted community whose priority is set around being neighborly oriented where community engagement is a significant part of our way of life – and Goshen County is no exception, so it’s no surprise that during the pandemic we were able to divert funds to battle homelessness and aid those at or below the poverty line.”
The former senator also said his office works with a number of state, county and local task forces as well as nonprofits to help with low income housing which also goes to help families living at or below the poverty line. One such agency his office works closely with is the Wyoming Community Development Authority (WCDA), where together in the last three years, the state was able to move roughly 1,000 single home houses and roughly 3,000 multi family homes into low-income housing for residents near the national poverty line.
“That was a great accomplishment for my office personally because it meant less Wyomingites were battling homelessness, or potential homelessness with secured housing,” Meier stated. He also said his office helped continue and create housing down payment assistance programs which helped residents secure, keep and maintain their own homes outside of the volatile renting market.
Bonnar added the treasurer’s office also, “bolster(ed) the state’s education and workers’ compensation funds.”
“My goal has always been to keep government taxation and spending at its lowest possible level so that the private sector can thrive without needless government interference or burdensome taxes,” Meier said.
Another accomplishment the state treasurer’s office saw while under Meier’s management was safeguarding taxpayer money and growing the state’s assets while modernizing the office’s accounting and administrative functions to be better efficient and limit future expenses in an effort of accountability and transparency.
“Over the past two years, the investment team at the state treasurer’s office has repeatedly beaten their investment benchmarks and it appears likely that they are about to do so for a third straight year,” Meier explained. “I think that is really impressive when you consider that over 80% of investment professionals fail this level of achievement for just one year, let alone three.”
During his first term as Wyoming State Treasurer, Meier had Washington D.C. based Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy, examine the office’s areas of governance, transparency, accountability, structure and behavior. The organization’s analysis determined that Wyoming is the number one rated sovereign wealth fund state in the U.S. and number three in the world behind only Norway and New Zealand when it comes to managing the state funding.
“We’ve made great strides and progress in the aspect of transparency, accountability and management of our state assets, funding and reporting to our constituents in my time in office,” Meier stated, “And I look forward to another four years of providing that same level of transparency and commitment to every single resident in our state.”
Another area Meier’s office has been focused on educating Wyoming residents about is how the Unclaimed Property Division of the State Treasurer’s Office, which set new records for both total number of recipients who have benefitted from the office’s efforts and amount of dollars, stocks returned to lawful owners of the property, has been dedicated to reaching its rightful owners.
“Last year alone, Meier’s team issued 5,487 checks and more than $7.42 million was paid back to rightful (unclaimed property) owners,” Bonnar said.
Some future goals Meier intends to look at from the state treasurer’s office are cybersecurity and social media, online safety needs across the state and funding for future legislation to help keep residents safe.
“In the next four years, I intend to take a look at our cybersecurity needs as well as the issue of social media and how it affects our citizens,” Meier added. “We also want to see what can be done about the alarming – presumably illegal activities – we’ve been noticing online,” Meier added.
Meier said even as state treasurer, his office has also noticed the vitriol online that is affecting citizens mental health and privacy and he would love to see Wyoming pass legislation that makes these sort of predatory online behaviors illegal in the state.
“No one should be publishing individuals’ personal information without their consent nor should they be bullied into a mental health crisis,” Meier added. “I absolutely would love to see our office work with our state leaders to help make online safer for our residents.”
Meier said, “Our dedicated employees are the heart and soul of the treasurer’s office, and I am proud of the work we have done together. There are just so many things that are going right in our office and what is really rewarding to the people working there is that they get to make a difference in people’s lives. We’ve improved the lives of every person in Wyoming in some way.”
While serving as a senator, Meier served on the State Treasurer Advisory Committee during the terms of former Wyoming State Treasurer’s Cynthia Lummis and Joe Meyer. He also served on the Select Committee on Capital Financing and Investments and was the Legislative Liaison to the State Retirement Board. Meier was also a member of the LEgislature’s Appropriations Committee and served as Chairman of both the Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee and the Transportation, Highway and Military Affairs Committee. Prior to his service with the state congress, he was appointed to the Wyoming State Board of Education by former Governor Mike Sullivan.
Meier has also been recognized by numerous organizations for the work he has done for Wyoming residents and is especially proud of the distinguished Patrick Henry Award from the Wyoming National Guard Association for his “outstanding and exceptional service to the armed forces.”
A young Meier graduated from the University of Wyoming with a bachelor’s degree in animal science and was a successful irrigation businessman prior to becoming a politician. He still owns and operates a farm and ranch in LaGrange.
His wife, Charlene, retired from elementary school education in 2019 after serving children in Goshen County for 45 years.
“I’ve spent my entire adult life working hard to keep Wyoming the best place in the world to live, work, play, raise a family and start a business – I would be honored to continue serving the people of this great state for four more years as your state treasurer,” Meier stated.
