Jeff Gudman on running for treasurer, top issues, what’s going right

KOIN 6 News contacted candidates who are running for Oregon state treasurer in 2024, asking them to respond to these four questions:

• Why are you running for state treasurer?

• What is your previous government/civic experience?

• If elected, what would be your top three priorities as treasurer?

• What would you change in the treasury office?

• Outgoing Treasurer Tobias Read introduced the Net Zero plan in February 2024 to transition Oregon Public Employee Retirement Funds away from investments associated with carbon emissions and Gov. Tina Kotek signed the COAL Act directing the state treasury to end holdings in coal stocks. If elected, how will you address these issues?

• In February 2023, Treasurer Read advocated for more residents to use the Oregon College Savings Plan – especially more low-income and minority families. If elected, how will you address college savings?

• A 2023 financial wellness scorecard released by the Oregon State Treasury showed Oregonians were earning more and had rising net worth, but household debt was higher than it was in 2018 and financial knowledge decreased. If elected, how would you address these issues?

Jeff Gudman is running as a Democrat. Here are his responses.

Why are you running for state treasurer?

I think that many of us, when we see what is upside-down with the government today, feel the urge to do something to fix it; I am privileged to have the experience and means to try and fix it by running for office, and I take that as a responsibility just as much as an opportunity.

There must be a relationship between daily economic realities faced by Oregonians and the highest moral and political principles that our elected officials strive for. Policies must be pursued that are fair to all Oregon residents and not skewed toward those who, by the dint of their wealth, can wield their influence for personal gain.

My professional and civic experience has qualified me to serve as Oregon’s next Treasurer, but my desire to use that experience to improve and assist Oregon — from government bodies to individual neighbors — is what drives me to run for the office.

What is your previous government/civic experience?

I am a second-generation Oregonian who chose to return to Oregon after finishing my formal education. I have earned a B.A. in Economics from Pomona College, and an MBA from the Wharton School. I have decades of experience investing and budgeting in public, private and non-profit organizations. In terms of elected experience, I served eight years on Lake Oswego City Council where my focus was on infrastructure. This focus resulted in rebuilding the operations/maintenance center, city hall/police station and improvements in the quality of roads all without asking residents for an additional dime in funding. In the volunteer world, among my many activities include 12 years on the board of USA Swimming (four as Treasurer) and serving as an official at three USA Swimming Olympic Trials. Currently, I am the Treasurer of the Clackamas Free Clinic and Treasurer of SAGE (a generational equity organization.)

If elected, what would be your top three priorities as treasurer?

First, provide unvarnished, fact-based reviews of Oregon’s financial landscape. That should be the first responsibility of any elected official, to first and foremost acknowledge facts, however uncomfortable they may be. For example: The Portland Association of Teachers rightfully points out underinvestment in our public schools while the legislature touts record K-12 funding.  Based on the legislature’s self-congratulatory examination of dollar amounts (including a self-congratulatory press release from my opponent), the budget seems impressive, but the numbers lack context. Looking at the state legislative budgeted dollars on a per student inflation adjusted basis, the 2023–2025 state school budget is in fact less than the 2021–2023 state school budget.  I believe that the state’s Chief Financial Officer should hold the legislature to account when we see such vital investments slipping away, as opposed to making it seem like we’re doing better than we are.

Second, Oregon cannot have a first-rate quality of life without making first-rate investments in our infrastructure and other capital needs. The kicker may be in the Constitution, but a unified legislature can still choose to redirect it. As State Treasurer, I would assemble an Advisory Committee to work in a collaborative manner with a wide variety of stakeholders from both sides of the aisle to identify the highest and best use of those funds aside from tax rebates that are skewed towards wealthier Oregonians. This may be funding one-off infrastructure projects (including rebuilding schools) throughout the state, paying down debt to expand our capacity, rolling dollars into more equitable tax rebates or targeted grants, or a combination thereof. As Treasurer, and with a bipartisan Committee recommendation behind me, I hope to provide legislators the impetus and cover they need to re-think what the kicker means. It may be a long shot today, but that might be because we haven’t had a financial leader doing the hard work of pulling such a group together yet.

Third, I believe that the pensions — including the plan structures — we have promised our public employees are part of an agreed-upon compensation package. The solvency of PERS is an issue that needs to be taken very seriously moving forward, but we can no more simply remove that compensation than we could refuse to pay a restaurant bill after overeating at dinner. It is a constitutionally protected contract. I believe our educators and other public servants deserve a State Treasurer who is willing to stand up to a legislature ready to cut pension benefits and say “Stop” with the authority of a Chief Financial Officer. I have outlined several ideas to maintain the solvency of the system without laying that burden upon working families.

In sum – my mission is to provide common-sense fiscal leadership for the State of Oregon.  Trusted. Transparent. Tested.  My goals are to:

• Expand economic opportunity for Oregon families,

• Utilize financial resources more efficiently in State Government,

• Invest in Oregon’s future both financially and programmatically, and

• Increase transparency and public involvement.

• Ensure that existing Treasury programs that are running well continue to run well.

What would you change in the treasury office?

Currently and historically, the State Treasury has been a fairly unilateral entity. Although many large decisions are rightly filtered through boards and commissions such as the Oregon Investment Council, the State Treasurer remains an elected position with a monumental amount of discretionary authority. Because of the nature of the work, this is not a bad thing, but it does put the Treasurer at risk of serving in an “echo chamber” of reflexively supportive and politically homogeneous counsel. I want to bring a culture change to the State Treasurer’s office whereby we develop spaces and opportunities for a wider array of voices to participate and provide feedback to the ongoing policies and priorities of the elected Treasurer. As an example, I have already noted that I would convene a committee to review bonding prioritizations, to ensure that the deployment of our resources is addressing not only the interests of people who look and sound like me, but also the interests of communities, regions, and individuals who have for too long not had a seat at that table.

Outgoing Treasurer Tobias Read introduced the Net Zero plan in February 2024 to transition Oregon Public Employee Retirement Funds away from investments associated with carbon emissions and Gov. Tina Kotek signed the COAL Act directing the state treasury to end holdings in coal stocks. If elected, how will you address these issues?

We can do better. Examples include creating a coalition of like-minded institutional investors to combine our proxy voting powers and push aggressively to ensure our holdings are meaningfully and prudently planning to move past fossil fuel reliance — and acting on those plans. To daylight financial risks of climate change by including a climate change risk factor statement in the State’s bond issuances. Examine the possible use of Oregon’s trust lands with regard to climate-friendly activities (for example, selling carbon credits, or constructing solar arrays in rangelands which could still be utilized as rangeland). The use of carbon credits as a tool has been endorsed by the Environmental Defense Fund.

The ideas I am presenting are part of the reason I have been endorsed by Representative Mark Gamba and Senator Jeff Golden, probably the two strongest environmental advocates in the legislature.

In February 2023, Treasurer Read advocated for more residents to use the Oregon College Savings Plan – especially more low-income and minority families. If elected, how will you address college savings?

At the Oregon College Savings Plan board meetings as at the Oregon Saves board meetings, efforts to first make sure more low income and minority families are aware of the program are already underway. Those efforts must continue. In particular families who do not have a bank account but do have a cell phone have an opportunity to become part of Oregon College Savings Program. Once the habit of monthly additions is started, it can have a significant impact. The new financial literacy requirement for high school graduation can also be utilized to increase participation.

But in a larger sense, I must point out that this is part of a running theme in government lately: to address budget gaps by overburdening working-class Oregon families. We have one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the nation, yet for decades our budget has been balanced time and time again by ratcheting down the State’s investment in higher education and expecting students and families to fill that budget hole through higher tuition and fees — even if that means going into personal debt. In 1970, a student could attend the University of Oregon for the cost of 6 minimum-wage-hours per week due to the state’s support: today it’s about 26.  Saving for college is a good thing, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the only reason it’s become so vital is because of the legislature’s divestment in higher education. We shouldn’t lose focus on reversing that trend.

A 2023 financial wellness scorecard released by the Oregon State Treasury showed Oregonians were earning more and had rising net worth, but household debt was higher than it was in 2018 and financial knowledge decreased. If elected, how would you address these issues?

This is a great reminder of how we need a Treasurer who is willing to give unvarnished information to Oregonians, even when it’s bad news. The Scorecard appears to cherry-pick easily quantified data points such as 529 Accounts and Oregon Saves numbers, while glossing over the fact that Federal Reserve data indicates that the overwhelming bulk of that increase in net worth continues to accumulate among the very highest income brackets. The majority of Oregonians reading that report may be mollified to read the top-line conclusions, but might be confused why, in light of such “good news,” they still seem to be struggling to make ends meet. They’re not alone, and they need a State Treasurer who is going to be more than a sycophantic cheerleader for the political establishment.

Oregonians are not financially illiterate. But like with anything, people don’t typically dive deep into topics that don’t affect their lives (for example: As a financial analyst I don’t know much about nuclear physics!) The Scorecard based its financial literacy score on the 2021 FINRA National Financial Capability Survey, which is biased towards families with assets to invest.  Questions relating to the nature of “bond prices” would be foreign to a family struggling to put food on the table — and could mean something completely different to anyone in the construction industry who deals more frequently with surety bonds. Or to put a finer point on it, one FINRA question glibly asks: “Suppose you have $100 in a savings account earning two percent interest a year. After five years, how much would you have?” The answer they’re looking for is $110.41, but for many families who don’t have the luxury of leaving $100 sitting around earning interest, the accurate answer is closer to $0. Penalizing struggling Oregonians for not being able to answer questions in the same context as well-to-do financial professionals is the height of cynicism.

Education is the key to financial literacy. Equally important are good jobs. Supremely important is ensuring that families have a secure financial context in which to approach these issues. When family members have good, well-paying jobs, financial stress is reduced and the opportunity to learn increases. As identified in my “Platform for Oregon’s Financial Future,” the use of some “kicker dollars” to fund infrastructure is one of benefitting Oregonians on an individual level but also the state with new or replaced infrastructure projects.

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