Treasurer: La. needs 'common sense'

John Schroder, Louisiana state treasurer, visited Morgan City on Wednesday to attend a St. Mary Parish Chamber of Commerce luncheon and campaigned on a pledge to “bring some common sense” to Louisiana government spending.
Schroder, a Republican from Baton Rouge, is on the Oct. 12 Louisiana primary ballot. He is being challenged by Democrat Derrick Edwards of Harvey and Teresa Kenney of New Orleans, who qualified with no party preference.
Schroder told those in attendance Wednesday that it is “unbelievable to me how much common sense we don’t use” and how the “biggest problem is that government money is spent like government money, and not yours."
“The state is poor, if you haven’t checked,” Schroder said, and “government’s problem is we spend everything we have. We don’t plan for tomorrow. We don’t plan for the future.”
This problem with funding flows into the state’s recent cyber security threat.
State Sen. Brett Allain, R-Franklin, was in attendance at the luncheon and asked Schroder to discuss the governor’s declaration of a state of emergency due to the recent cyber-attacks.
Schroder said it is a “real, real threat.” He was most bothered by the “lack of communication between the executive branch and the treasurer.” Schroder said he found out about the declaration on the radio.
“The bad guys are out there,” Schroder continued, “but it takes money to upgrade systems to be more secure.”
Schroder said the treasury has been working with J.P. Morgan Chase, the main banker for the state, as well as talking to national security officials in D.C., but he said they are still trying to negotiate prices with companies that up security.
Schroder said this is a real threat that needs to be addressed and quickly.
“No one wants to wake up one day and find out [the attackers] stole $200 million out the Department of Treasury. The people of Louisiana won’t like that too much.”
Schroder is an Army veteran and a former narcotics agent, and has been in business since he was 29. He has been the Louisiana state treasurer since elected in November of 2017. One of his main focuses since he took office was to return the taxpayer’s money through the Unclaimed Property Program.
Every year, millions of dollars are turned over to the State Treasurer’s Office by businesses that are unable to contact property owners. These funds may be in the form of cash, stocks, bonds, securities, insurance benefits, etc.
According to Schroder, the state has around $900 million in unclaimed property.
“Unclaimed property belongs to the individual,” Schroder said.
Schroder and his team worked on new ways to get this unclaimed property back to its rightful owners. One of the main ways was utilizing a website, www.latreasury.com. Individuals are encouraged to go to the sight and search for unclaimed property that may belong to them. Schroder said his new program “returned $52 million, up from $25 million-$26 million from before.”