Bill Lockyer looks back on time as California’s 32nd State Treasurer

 California’s 32nd State Treasurer Bill Lockyer reflects on his time in the role.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 15, 2020 / The California State Treasurer’s Office plays a key part in helping the so-called Golden State to meet the ever-present challenges surrounding securing a prosperous future for an increasingly diverse and growing population. Appointed as California’s 32nd State Treasurer on November 7, 2006, attorney and former elected official Bill Lockyer looks back on his time in the crucial and highly prestigious role.

“As 32nd State Treasurer, I had many essential tools at my disposal to help create a stronger California,” explains Bill Lockyer, speaking from his home in southern Los Angeles County. Lockyer was, he says, committed to putting these tools to the greatest possible use, ensuring well-paid jobs, improved transportation, superior schools, quality health care, and more affordable housing for the people of California.

Another of Lockyer’s top priorities, he reports, was vigilant stewardship of taxpayers’ money. “I also prioritized environmental protection,” explains the former elected official and attorney. Indeed, during his time as California’s 32nd State Treasurer, Bill Lockyer sponsored ‘green bond’ legislation intended to make government buildings, in particular, more energy-efficient, thereby reducing their contribution to climate change.

Bill Lockyer also sponsored another initiative designed to make it more cost-effective for schools and other governmental entities to install renewable energy sources, he explains. “At the same time, I revived the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority,” reveals Lockyer, “which afforded low-cost financing for renewable energy and alternative fuels projects.”

Elsewhere, while serving as the 32nd State Treasurer of California, Bill Lockyer became a leading voice in the call for meaningful, long-term budget reforms aimed at ending chronic deficits, strengthening the State of California’s credit rating, and bolstering its credibility with taxpayers. “In 2007, I published ‘Looking Beyond the Horizon: Investment Planning for the 21st Century,’” explains Lockyer, “a report in which I advocated for longer-term budget planning and prioritization processes.”

A year into his time in the role, meanwhile, in 2007, then-California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer launched what’s still considered a largely unprecedented campaign to drive the increased purchase of California bonds by investors. “The program received national attention,” Lockyer reveals, looking back, “and was quickly copied by other states.”

As California’s 32nd State Treasurer, Bill Lockyer utilized, it’s said, a wealth of leadership, management, and policymaking skills that the now-retired official had developed over the course of more than 30 years in public service.

From 1999 until 2006, Bill Lockyer served as California Attorney General. Here, he helped to revolutionize crime fighting in the state, cracked down on public health insurance fraud, and recovered billions of dollars for defrauded energy ratepayers, consumers, and taxpayers. Prior to his election in 1998, Lockyer served for 25 years in the California State Legislature.

Bill Lockyer retired from politics in 2015. A graduate of both the University of California and the University of the Pacific, today, attorney and former elected official Bill Lockyer is counsel for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.