APS finances in the morning

I return to blogging this morning after taking some time off last week to enjoy the Balloon Fiesta with some out-of-state visitors. Sorry for the lack of fresh content, and I hope you all enjoyed the pretty balloons as much as I did.

My return to work was marked a 7:30 a.m. meeting of the Albuquerque Public Schools finance committee meeting, which is really early in the world of print journalism. In retrospect, I probably could have slept in, because the meeting was over by 7:50, and routine documents were approved without much discussion. That’s largely a function of the way finance committee chair Marty Esquivel runs meetings. He allows discussion if board members want to talk, but he moves quickly between agenda items and is loathe to let meetings drag on longer than they need to. This is in contrast to other board members who chair committees. I’m not saying which committee meetings always take hours, but they start with a p and end with an “olicy.”

I thought the most interesting thing to come out of this morning’s meeting was a discussion of the district’s investment strategy. APS Chief Financial Officer Don Moya has been working on a plan to invest some of the district’s money, but said he has been stymied by a state law that doesn’t allow districts to invest in anything except bonds and treasuries, which are safe but relatively low-yield. Moya said the district will advocate for a change to the law, which would allow districts (perhaps only larger districts) invest in things like money markets, which Moya said are still safe, but provide a higher yield than treasuries. Moya said the yield from treasuries is currently so low, that the district might actually lose money by investing in treasuries, because APS would have to pay banking fees for lowering their account balances. So for the moment, the district isn’t doing much investing.

There, wasn’t that interesting? That probably won’t make it into the print newspaper, but at least now my selfless decision to get up two hours earlier than usual won’t be for naught.