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Treasury highlights school-transparency portal, unclaimed-property returns and improved bond ratings in FY26 briefing
Summary
At a Senate Fiscal hearing, the Department of the Treasury outlined FY26 budget proposals, reported upgraded bond ratings and previewed the launch of a new school-transparency portal required by recent law; the agency also described ongoing unclaimed-property processing improvements.
Chaz Nichols and Treasury officials presented the FY26 recommended budget for the Department of the Treasury and described a mix of fees and self-generated revenues, statutory dedications and modest state general fund support that fund the department.
Treasury reported that investment returns improved significantly in FY24 — Treasury highlighted a year-over-year investment earnings increase (noted in the presentation as about 75% growth from FY23 to FY24) and credited stronger performance for recent bond-refinancing savings. The department said it returned roughly $50 million to citizens through the Unclaimed Property Division in FY24 and expects similar results in FY25.
Secretary John Fleming told the committee the state’s bond rating was upgraded by S&P to AA from AA– in March 2024; Moody’s and KBRA ratings were also described as in a strong position. Fleming said these upgrades lower the state’s borrowing costs and cited $97.8 million in refinancing savings reported for 2024.
Senators pressed Treasury on cooperative endeavor agreements (CEAs) and local distributions. Treasury staff said many CEAs expire June 30 and that the department has posted a detailed online report listing CEAs by parish; they offered to provide Excel lists and to work with legislators to help entities that have not submitted required documents. The committee also discussed the Hurricane Ida recovery grants administered by Treasury and the school-transparency portal launched to comply with Act 370 of 2023; Treasury said the portal would go live on March 31 and will publish detailed school-system contract and spending records as required by law.
Treasury representatives said they implemented an outside call center to reduce the unclaimed-property backlog and to allow in-house staff to process more complex claims; the call-center work reduced phone-backlog tasks by more than half, they said. The department reported 74 authorized positions for FY26, small vacancies and that about 13% of staff were eligible to retire within a year.
Committee members asked for detailed fee/closing-fee schedules for the Bond Commission and for additional breakdowns of interagency service spending and travel allocations in agency budgets.
