HURON — As state treasurer, Josh Haeder of Huron would partner with others in developing a curriculum for high school students to teach them basic financial education skills that would serve them well in college and beyond.
Too many individuals and married couples get in trouble – leading to divorce, bankruptcy or both – because they don’t know how to handle their money, he said.
“Understanding,” Haeder said at the Beadle County Republican Party campaign luncheon on Monday, “that on a month to month basis the first bill you have to pay, every single month, is to yourself, into an emergency savings account.
“It’s quite simple, but the reason that you do that is so over time, when you have an emergency, you don’t have to necessarily borrow it against a credit card and then pay the minimum payment back at 23 percent interest over a period of 10 years,” he said.
“You know how much that is going to cost you?” Haeder said.
He’d like to see the treasurer’s office not only work with high school students, but with college graduates heading into marriage and even elementary school students.
“I know we can’t help everybody, but at the end of the day I believe we can help somebody,” he said.
The Huron native is a small business owner who spent the last four and a half years on the South Dakota staff of Sen. Mike Rounds.
Haeder spent five years as a chief operating officer for a national credit counseling agency and several years in business and agriculture banking management.
The state treasurer’s top priority is to protect taxpayer dollars, he said. Attempts at hacking into state accounts in the past few years have successfully been mitigated, but Haeder said he worries about the next one.
“We have to remember that the folks that wish us harm are getting stronger and smarter and it’s not just individuals and small groups it’s governments,” he said.
“And they only have to get it right one time,” Haeder said. “Can you imagine the chaos if they got it right one time? It’s unfathomable.”
He said he’d like to work with Dakota State University, a national leader in cyber security education, to make sure the state’s money and information is safe. “Government is at risk, not just individuals,” he said.
Haeder also said one in four people are the rightful owners of more than $300 million in unclaimed property being held by the state as it tries to locate them and return it.
People can check the state treasurer’s web site to see if their name is on it.
Haeder said he’d like to get the word out on unclaimed property on social media platforms, while also expediting the process involved in returning the funds once the owners have been found.
He would also consider asking legislators to double the amount of time the treasurer’s office has in finding people from 180 days to one year.
