Saturday, February 24, 2007

Richard Cordray

Richard Cordray, the State Treasurer for Ohio, has been in office for less than two months and he is already finding mistakes from the previous administration. Cordray, a Democrat, and his staff have been working hard looking for money for the state. Here is an article from today's Dispatch:

When he balanced the state's “checkbook,” Treasurer Richard Cordray found the bank had charged too much.

As a result, the state may get a credit of several hundred thousand dollars from KeyBank, Cordray said today at a meeting of the State Board of Deposit.

The three-member board, consisting of the treasurer, attorney general and auditor, monitors state funds and investments.

Cordray, who took office last month, said KeyBank's contract as the state's prime depository allowed the bank the charge fees for services. It also required the bank to give the state interest credit for money left in the account at the end of each business day.

In many cases, the bank was assessing charges, but not giving full interest credit, he said.

The amount of credit due from 2006 is at least $170,000 but could be far more since KeyBank has been under contract with the state for 14 years.

In addition, Cordray said he expects to cancel what he considers an unnecessary contract with KeyBank that could save taxpayers another $626,000 on an annual basis. The contract is for reporting service that Cordray said his staff can do in-house.

Cordray and the rest of the new Democrats in the state government are doing a great job to correct the mistakes of the Taft administration. If Cordray found these errors in less than two months, what other things will he find in the coming years. Thank goodness for Cordray!!!