CHARLESTON – John Perdue assured himself a place Jan. 19 as West Virginia’s second-longest tenured State Treasurer, braving wintry weather during his fourth inauguration.
At the conclusion of this term, Perdue will find himself tied in years of consecutive service with W.S. Johnson (R-Fayette), who served from 1916 to 1932. The Treasurer with the most years of consecutive service is Richard E. Talbott (D-Barbour), who occupied the office from 1932 to 1950.
“I’m once again honored that the people of West Virginia have entrusted me with the responsibility of safeguarding the state treasury,” Perdue said. “I will approach this term the same way I have the previous three – with humility at being elected and eagerness to serve.”
He was elected over Wheeling businessman Stan Klos in November 1996; with no opposition in 2000; by landslide election in 2004; and with no opposition in 2008.
Perdue’s tenure has been marked by numerous milestones. He is both a past president of the National Association of State Treasurers and the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators.
State treasurers across the country look to him for leadership on Operation Rightful Owner, an effort to return some $16 billion in unclaimed U.S. savings bonds. That measure would require passage of federal legislation, an effort in which the Treasurer is heavily involved.
Those efforts, in fact, earned him national coverage from CBS News in 2006. NBC’s “Dateline” program featured the office’s return of funds in 2007 to Institute resident Mary Chester.
Treasurer Perdue’s public career began in 1973 when he joined the staff of the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, where he worked his way up to become assistant commissioner.
Former Gov. Gaston Caperton recruited him in 1989 to work on the governor’s staff, where he was senior executive assistant for eight years. His duties included handling the financial operations of the governor’s office, serving as the governor’s disaster relief specialist, working as his sewer and water project funding coordinator and skillfully managing duties as the governor’s legislative liaison.
Known as an accessible public servant, Treasurer Perdue used his experience and reputation to forge a victory in his first bid for statewide office in 1996 when he was overwhelmingly elected the state treasurer over Klos.
Since taking office, Perdue has restored confidence in the Treasurer’s office and reorganized the staff to handle the additional duties that the Legislature returned to the agency. The State Treasurer has won responsibility for all banking functions for the state while winning the confidence of the Legislature to administer programs transferred to the office from other agencies.
Those victories include:
· The 2005 Legislature returned the state’s day-to-day operating funds from one quasi-public agency to Treasurer Perdue’s office. That fund, then worth $2.5 billion, now has a value of $3.6 billion and is administered by the Board of Treasury Investments. Treasurer Perdue is chairman of that five-person board, which also includes the governor and auditor. Local governments such as counties and cities make up $187 million of that sum.
· A year later, the Legislature approved transfer of the state’s 457 deferred compensation plan to the Treasurer’s Office. Since assuming custodianship of that program, Treasurer Perdue has increased participation and launched an extensive marketing program to further promote the idea of supplemental retirement saving.
Long before those landmark victories, Treasurer Perdue convinced the Legislature in 1997 to return cash management responsibilities to the office, to allow residents to conduct credit card business with the state and to save millions of dollars by greatly reducing the number of checks written in lieu of electronic transfers.
Among his most gratifying achievements have been his Financial Education Initiatives. He originally conceived the West Virginia Prepaid College Fund and later introduced the SMART529 college savings plan, with the help of The Hartford Co. The SMART529 program carries approximately $1 billion in assets and has been repeatedly praised by the Web site savingforcollege.com, a leading savings program rating service.
The Treasurer’s statewide “Bank at School” program for 5th and 6th grade students reaches more than 300 schools and 30,000 students statewide. Approximately 120 banks are involved in setting up savings accounts for students and providing additional tutoring. Kids are actually taken to local banks to make their periodic deposits.
On the high school level, the Treasurer pushed through legislation in 2005 that requires all 2008 graduating seniors to possess a civics credit. Part of that civics curriculum is a unit in financial education. The Treasurer’s staff is helping train teachers in preparation for those classes.
Adult financial education encompasses the Treasurer’s wellestablished Money Conference series, which is largely tailored to serving the needs of women. Treasurer Perdue’s office has hosted 22 Money Conferences, beginning in 2002, with some 7,000 people attending. The series has taken the Treasurer’s staff from Huntington to Shepherdstown and Wheeling to Princeton.
Treasurer Perdue has also served as head of the Northeast Region of the National Association of State Treasurers. He has sat on the board of the College Savings Plan Network and has worked as its liaison with the National Association of State Treasurers.
He is a native of Dog Fork Hollow at Manila, Boone County, and the son of Mary and the late Glen Perdue. After graduating from Scott High School, Madison, the Treasurer attended West Virginia University and earned a B.S. degree in 1972.
The Treasurer is the chairman of the WVU College of Agriculture and Forestry Visiting Committee, he serves on the West Virginia Board of Trustees of the Leukemia Society of America, and is a member of the West Virginia Technology Enterprise Investment Council.
John and his wife, Robin, are the parents of two daughters. They areresidents of Kanawha County.
1-23-09