The Unified Government’s Treasury Department presented its first‑quarter investment report for 2025 to the Economic Development Finance committee on June 2, reporting a 3.07% average portfolio yield, 116 days to maturity and $2,000,000 in interest earned during the quarter.

Deputy Treasurer Michelle Wooten told the committee the portfolio is roughly two‑thirds cash and one‑third invested securities; the report showed 67% of the portfolio held as cash and 33% invested in CDs, U.S. agencies and other securities. “For first quarter, our average yield was 3.07% … total interest earned in quarter 1 of ’25 was $2,000,000,” Wooten said.

Wooten and Chief Financial Officer Shelly Knievin explained that the report shows the portfolio out of the policy target for the percentage of assets maturing within 0–12 months. The staff said the apparent breach is largely a bookkeeping effect: the practice of including highly liquid overnight investments and operating cash in the maturity‑bucket calculations makes the 0–12‑month category look artificially high. Staff proposed clarifying the cash‑in‑benchmark methodology so that short‑term overnight cash would not be treated the same as multimonth CDs and agency securities.

Key points
- Average portfolio yield for Q1 2025: 3.07% (up slightly from 3.02% in Q4 2024), below the T‑bill benchmark cited in the report (4.04%).
- Days to maturity: 116 days (up from about 100 days in Q4 2024).
- Portfolio composition: roughly 67% cash, 33% invested securities; roughly $383 million in total securities was noted in staff materials, with CDs and U.S. Agencies among the holdings.
- Interest earned in Q1 2025 reported as $2,000,000.

Policy clarification recommended
Knievin and Wooten said the department plans to recommend a clarification to investment policy that would exclude nightly overnight cash reinvestments from the 0–12‑month maturity percentage calculation. That practice, they said, both protects operating funds and skews the portfolio maturity picture when included in the same bucket as true short‑term investment securities.

Other items discussed
- Two four‑year investments made in 2021–22 with lower yields (about 2.8%) were coming due in June; staff said they expected to rebid those maturities and anticipated better yields in the current market.
- Staff noted CDs in the portfolio are fully collateralized per investment policy and state statute.

Outcome
The item was presented for information. Committee members asked clarifying questions about overnight reinvestments, bank arrangements for nightly sweeping, and whether the portfolio’s apparent 0–12‑month concentration presented any credit or rating risk. Staff said the issue is a policy clarification rather than a change in investment philosophy and will return with a drafted clarification for committee consideration.

Speakers
Michelle Wooten, deputy treasurer and cash manager; Shelly Knievin, chief financial officer; Treasurer Andrew Vinger was present but did not present remarks.

Why readers should care
The clarification affects how the UG measures liquidity against its policy benchmarks and may change how the portfolio’s compliance is reported. The investments under discussion back operating funds and tax distributions and generate the interest revenue the UG counts in its budget forecasts.