Two familiar faces around the Colorado state legislature are hoping to occupy the treasurer’s office. Dave Young, the Democratic incumbent, faces Lang Sias, who was the running mate of former GOP gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton.
Both Young and Sias are former state House lawmakers. Young, from Greeley, and Sias hails from Jefferson County.
Made up of four divisions — the investments division, the cash management division, the accounting and administrative division, and the unclaimed property division — the treasurer’s office is essentially the state’s banker, but with additional duties. The treasurer is responsible for the state’s “banking, investment, and accounting services for all funds and assets deposited in the Treasury,” explains the state.
Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Colorado’s state pension fund, controlled by the treasurer, divested more than $7 million from Russia’s largest financial institution and $800,000 more from other Russian companies. Colorado’s state portfolio doesn’t hold any Russian assets.
Young says on his campaign website that his top goals in the elected seat are to protect taxpayer dollars, protect the state economy and protect PERA, the pension fund for state public workers.
“In this role, we operate similar to a household balancing its budget. This process becomes more and more complex as there are many state departments and agencies that all disburse funds and the Treasury tracks all of those expenditures. The Treasury must run efficiently and effectively to manage cash flow, so that Colorado will be able to cover its obligations such as school funding, road improvements, paying our public employees, and so much more,” Young says on his website.
The pandemic led to major fluctuations in state finances, but Young says because of the office’s hard work, “Coloradans did not face additional economic distress.”
Sias says he wants to fight economic inflation if elected to treasurer.
“Lang believes that State and Federal policies are stoking inflation and making Colorado increasingly unaffordable,” he says on his campaign website. “Spending is at unprecedented levels, and we are not paying enough attention to what we are getting for our money.”
On PERA, Sias, who is also a current board member for the pension fund, says he wants to “ensure that retiree pensions are secure and that the burdens on school districts and taxpayers are reasonable.”