LA GRANGE – Senator Curt Meier decided to re-enter the political arena, running for State Treasurer.
Meier, from LaGrange, has served as the District 3 senator for more than two decades, representing Goshen, Niobrara and Weston counties in eastern Wyoming since 1995. During the off season, he and his wife operate a 3,000-acre farm, with another 1,400-acres irrigated and drylands grass, currently leased to a registered Angus beef breeder.
“We have put most of our land into irrigated alfalfa,” Meier said. “The nice thing is the dirt doesn’t blow and we don’t have to replant it every year.
“With the advent of a mozzarella cheese plant in Colorado having over 40,000 dairy cows that is growing to 70,000 or more cows, at that one plant, they need a lot of hay,” he said. “We also put in some low migrant alfalfa, cutting more than seven tons and testing from 180 to 240. We are getting around 220 and it is about a dollar a point and it is a better cash crop than 200-bushel corn or 50-bushel beans.”
With the state’s financial problems, Meier believes he can bring the state of Wyoming back from the crush of the economic downturn.
“My political career started in the late 70’s and early 80’s,” Meier said. “I was appointed to the state board of education by Governor Sullivan and sat on the board for two years before running for the state senate seat.”
Being on the state senate executive committee and on the state central committee for around 10 years, Meier eventually said to himself, ‘I am a state senator, I am on the central committee, I’m on the executive committee, I want to let somebody have their chance at some of these leadership positions.’
“I served three governors, chaired numerous committees and was awarded multiple awards,” he said. “The National Guard awarded Meier the Patrick Three Award and I was also awarded the Legislature Award.
“When I was on the appropriations committee, we forwarded a bill for a Constitutional Amendment, which allows us to take some of our fixed assets that are not performing well and put them into another classification of investment class that has some equities in it,” Meier said. “Right now, I think the treasury has 25 percent in there so, rather than going up to 70 percent, it’s got 25 percent and the treasurer has 56 percent on other things.”
Meier acknowledged the wording of the amendment makes it difficult to move funds from some of the 400 state sub-accounts for investment. One fix he wants to work on if elected treasurer is to give decision-making power on what and how to invest to the state’s Loan and Investment Board.
Of equal concern is the state’s $1.6 billion “Rainy-Day” Fund, which the Wyoming Legislature wants to control.
“If they want us to put a billion dollars into a different classification of funding and not the whole $1.6 billion, that’s fine,” he said. They need to have that control of the rainy-day fund. I think we are in good shape with that.”
