State Treasurer Converse Chellis visits Rotary
July 28th, 2009: State Treasurer Converse Chellis broke what seems to be the current trend of reporting only bad news and elected instead, to focus his presentation to our club at Tuesday’s meeting on the positive things going on in South Carolina. Given the current environment we are in right now, it was a refreshing change and one I think his audience greatly appreciated. Chellis was elected State Treasurer in August of 2007 by the General Assembly and before that, had served in the General Assembly since 1996. In addition, he is a licensed CPA and had a long career in the industry before moving on to political office.
When he was first elected, Chellis was intent on bringing integrity to his position. He was focused on cutting waste where he could and making improvements to the state’s retirement system, unclaimed property accounts, college savings plan, and creating an initiative for the state to begin the process of going paperless beginning with state employee’s paychecks.
The state of South Carolina currently has thousands of unclaimed property accounts, there are 107,000 cases here in Charleston alone. Chellis and the General Assembly created the Palmetto Payback program, targeted at finding those that are owed money and returning it to them. This owed money has been turned over by a company or other entity to the state when the person they are looking for could not be located. Through the Palmetto Payback program, residents can now easily learn if they are on the list and re-claim what is rightfully theirs. The goal of the Treasurer’s office is to get that list down to just a few thousand people.
In 2008, South Carolina introduced the Future Scholar 529 College Plan. This new plan has taken our state from being ranked 24th in the nation to being in the top 5 for college savings plans in the country. This past year, South Carolina was ranked second in the nation for the plan’s investment performance in 2008. This plan is available to all those in South Carolina and is open to other states as well.
As our country continues to endure one of its most uncertain times, it’s nice to know that good things are happening in our state. To learn more about the State Treasurer, some of the programs his office offers and his futures goals, go to www.treasurer.sc.gov.
Submitted by Darby Siegel, Keyway Committee