A Blog Called Hope

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Frank Caprio has an exciting announcement for every Rhode Islander. The state is holding over $124 million in unclaimed property, and some of it could be yours.

In order to protect consumers, RI State law requires businesses to turn over inactive financial accounts to the Office of the General Treasurer. Currently, we are holding more than $124 million in unclaimed property. Some of this money could belong to you! Many people do not realize they have unclaimed property. To make it easy for you to determine whether or not you may have unclaimed property click here to search our unclaimed property database. You can also view a tutorial on How to Search the Unclaimed Property Database.

He also offers a warning about “heirfinder” organizations which bilk people out of a portion of their money for doing a 20 second internet search. You can do the search for free all by yourself by going to the Office of the General Treasurer’s website.

Rhode Island General Treasurer Frank Caprio is pushing for a new law to better inform and protect renters facing eviction when their building is foreclosed upon.

From today’s ProJo:

The legislation would require lenders to inform renters of “pending foreclosures” and notify them, in writing, at least 60 days prior to eviction.

There is currently no requirement in state law that tenants be notified before a foreclosure; the law states only that tenants are given “reasonable notice” prior to being evicted. What is deemed “reasonable,” lawyers say, can range from as little as three days to 30 days or longer.

The legislation, which is being drafted, Caprio said, “will provide basic protections to those who have done nothing wrong and are simply trying to find a decent place to live.”

In case you missed this last week, here’s some good news regarding the state’s pension fund announced by Gen. Treasurer Frank Caprio on NBC 10’s 5:30 report.

This from Caprio’s office:

Months before the subprime mortgage crisis began to take a toll on banks, financial services companies and even public pension funds, General Treasurer Frank Caprio began taking steps to reduce risk in Rhode Island’s pension portfolio by minimizing exposure to asset backed securities. From his first days in office, Caprio and his investment management team launched a comprehensive assessment of the state pension portfolio and the state’s short-term investments with a specific focus on their exposure to collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), structured investment vehicles (SIVs), and other asset-backed securities.

As part of that effort, Caprio pro-actively moved $1 billion from so-called Quality D money market funds (with loose terms which could have allowed for investment in CDOs and SIVs) into Quality A institutional money market funds which are only invested in government back bonds last March, well before the scope of subprime losses began to rock financial markets. At the same time, Caprio moved approximately $150 million in high-yield investments into safe Treasury bonds, before the high yield market began to decline. Those moves are already paying major dividends as several states are facing financial crises related to defaults and downgrades on subprime-related investments.

This, today, from the office of Gen. Treas. Frank Caprio:

As part of his effort to enhance customer service and improve the management of all Treasury operations, General Treasurer Frank Caprio has won approval from the state Retirement Board for a proposal to conduct a benchmarking study comparing the operations of the Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island to similar public sector retirement systems in the country.

The Retirement Board approved a plan to hire CEM Benchmarking to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the operations of the ERSRI. Caprio said benchmarking studies are a progressive tool being used by managers in both the public and private sector to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of their operations compared to similar agencies and organizations.

“This study will enable us to measure the productivity of our operation and identify areas where we can do our jobs more effectively for the people of Rhode Island,” said Caprio. “I believe state government needs to be accountable to the people it serves and conduct its operations in a transparent manner. This study will be a rigorous and open evaluation of how we are doing compared to other public sector retirement systems and how we can do better.”

Caprio said CEM Benchmarking has a database of information regarding the management of numerous public pension systems, which will be used to identify those ERSRI programs which are operating efficiently and inefficiently. The company will look at metrics such as service level, costs, transaction volumes, and plan complexity and how those metrics compare to similar public retirement systems. Representatives from the company and ERSRI staff will spend the next few months evaluating the various operations of the retirement office and will develop a report for the Treasurer to be presented as early as February.

CEM Benchmarking has provided independent, objective and actionable analysis to over 170 corporate and government clients in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. Pension administration is one of the company’s core industry sectors and CEM Benchmarking has extensive experience obtaining performance metrics, evaluating a client’s performance and costs based on benchmark comparisons to similar entities and identifying best practices.

“Improving the performance of the ERSRI is an essential part of my commitment to improve customer service and make government more accountable,” said Caprio. “I look forward to working with CEM Benchmarking to review the operations of the retirement system so that we identify what is working and what needs to be improved.”

General Treasurer Frank Caprio filmed this message asking Rhode Islanders support for legislation that would end the state’s pension investments in companies that aid the horrific genocide in Darfur., It was sponsored in the House by Rep. Joe Almedia, of Providence and overwhelmingly supported by both chambers. The governor signed the bill into law yesterday.