BRATTLEBORO — State treasurer and Brattleboro native Mike Pieciak is running for reelection in hopes of addressing some unfinished business.
"I really enjoyed the job, enjoyed being in public services the last decade in Vermont, both as deputy commissioner and the commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation, and seeing the Treasurer's Office as an extension of that," he said in an interview Wednesday. "It's an interesting job that sits at the intersection of policy and finance, and politics and business, so it's well suited for my background and my experience."
Pieciak called the two-year terms "so short." He wants to see a few initiatives he helped launched through.
With the "10% in Vermont" local investment program, his office is putting low-interest loans into housing development across the state. He said the program expanded since the beginning of his term and has supported about 900 units of new housing so far.
When visiting all 252 communities across Vermont, Pieciak heard how housing and homelessness are major challenges. He was visiting Brattleboro on Wednesday to discuss the topic at a panel hosted by The Commons weekly newspaper.
"It's pretty clear both from an economic argument and from a social argument that housing was the biggest issue, and I wanted to try to find whatever we could do in our office to make an impact on it," he said. "And since the state's in such strong financial position and being able to leverage our balance sheet to provide low cost capital to build more housing, I thought that was a really innovative way of trying to support housing."
Vermont Saves, another initiative, is a publicly administered retirement program passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and the Senate with the governor's signature on the bill. Pieciak said the program aims to help the approximately 80,000 Vermonters lacking access to retirement savings through their employer.
If employees don't opt out, they will have 5 percent of their paycheck automatically invested and saved toward retirement. They also can increase or decrease the rate.
About 95 percent of people aren't saving money for retirement if they aren't provided a workplace plan, Pieciak said, "so we thought that was really critical to provide that kind of access. And in the long term, we think it's beneficial to everybody."
Vermont is partnering with Colorado to establish the program, with the hope of it running by late 2024 or early 2025.
"We will leverage their vendor to be able to set the program up and then manage it going forward," Pieciak said. "We ... will get the benefit of learning the things that went well and didn't go well."
Partnering also allows fees for individuals to start to come down and for Vermont to get the program off the ground sooner, Pieciak said.
Baby Bonds, another initiative being proposed as pilot program in legislation this year, seeks to put $3,200 aside in bonds for each baby born into families on Medicaid. Pieciak said the investment will compound over time, helping individuals buy homes, start a business or continue education.
"We'll roll it over into retirement accounts," he said. "So it helps with generational poverty, by giving capital for things that are wealth generating. It helps with rural economic development ... and it also helps keep young people here because you have to be born here to be eligible and you have to be a Vermont resident to actually claim the baby bond as well."
Pieciak said rating agencies have indicated that the state's demographics and unfunded pension liability have been improving with efforts in recent years. As education financing has been a challenge, a task force in his office is looking at what schools need.
"I think there's a real disconnect for voters and the outcome of what the property taxes ultimately are," Pieciak said. "And to make that a more straightforward mechanism of finance, I think, would go a long ways in helping people feel better about what they're voting on and what they're paying for."
Pieciak previously served as the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation, the state’s consumer financial watchdog agency, under Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin then Republican Gov. Phil Scott. The department recouped millions of dollars for Vermont taxpayers under his direction and he played a key role in uncovering fraudulent economic development projects in the Northeast Kingdom funded through the federal EB-5 immigrant investor program.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Scott tapped Pieciak to help lead Vermont's response efforts. He directed the state’s pandemic data analysis and modeling, becoming a familiar face at the governor's news conferences.
Pieciak is running as a Democrat again. He said he received a lot of support from the party throughout the state.
His mother is a Democrat and his father is a Republican.
"They've always provided a balanced perspective for me that I still try to use in my job even though I'm a Democrat," he said. "I do try to listen to all sides and try to be able to work with anybody."
He said his office is collaborating with the governor's on a climate resiliency initiative to develop a strategic plan over the next 18 months.
Pieciak described his last campaign as "a great experience."
"I had conversations with people I would never have met otherwise," he said. "Those conversations are really important and I feel now that I've gone through that process, I know just how critical they are and I look forward to having them again, all across the state."
On potentially running for higher office, Pieciak said he's "very happy in this job and I want to have another term to cover a lot of these initiatives that we started."
"I think my sense is that everybody statewide will be running for reelection," he said. "We'll see what happens there, but we'll allow for that conversation at some point down the road."
Pieciak grew up on Wantastiquet Drive in Brattleboro, and attended local schools and Northfield Mount Hermon School in Gill, Mass. He currently lives in Winooski with his partner Will Holder and their English Setter.
A Union College graduate, Pieciak received his law degree from the University of Miami School of Law, where he was editor in chief of the law review. He worked at law firms in Burlington and New York City before joining the financial regulation department.