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Dear Casper,
Over the past year, I have been privileged to be part of the team offering guidance to the City of Casper regarding the investment of the city’s capital reserves. During this process I learned that the definition of allowable investments for municipalities is very limited in scope in our state constitution. Currently, only fixed income or bond investments are approved as investment vehicles for municipalities.
On the ballot this year is a constitutional amendment (Amendment A) that will allow municipalities to invest a portion of their reserves into an equity fund that will be managed by the State of Wyoming. The passing of this amendment does not mean that the city would immediately be putting money into the S&P 500 stock index. It does mean that they would have the opportunity to discuss the benefits of adding money to a professionally managed investment portfolio that would be overseen by the state.
There is no requirement that any municipality participate; it just gives the option to participate if the individual entity chooses to do so after thoughtful consideration by the stakeholders in each community.
Please consider voting “YES” on Amendment A to provide the municipalities in our state the opportunity to earn higher long-term returns with some of their reserves and thereby increasing that revenue stream in their budget.
Brenda Janikowski
Casper
