Treasurer Flowers And WILMAPCO's Dan Blevins Stated For June 19th Meeting, 7PM At Troop 2 In Bear

The Civic League for New Castle County

Next meeting: Tuesday June 19, 2012 at 7:00 PM

Location: Delaware State Police Troop 2 Building 100 La Grange Ave Newark, DE Get Map

CIVIC LEAGUE FOR NEW CASTLE COUNTY  Chuck Mulholland, President AGENDA Guest Speakers: Mr. Dan Blevins - WILMAPCO Planner Update on population & employment projections Mr. Chip Flowers - State Treasurer

Come out and you'll get the chance to ask the Treasurer more about the controversy stirring with the Governor and his staff:

(News Journal) Jonanthan Starkey reports ~ Outcast of Markell's inner circle - 

Treasurer Chip Flowers cites 'smear tactics'; official [OMB Director Visalli] says he's 'holding a gun'

Flowers, Delaware’s bombastic first-term treasurer, has accomplished a number of campaign goals since taking office in January 2011, launching online financial literacy tools and an economic warning system that earned praise from the White House. He’s also taken steps to improve performance in Delaware’s $2 billion investment portfolio.

But Flowers’ most surprising attribute as a public official may be his propensity to spar publicly with Delaware’s political establishment – a rarity here. In an election year that should feature sniping between Democrats and Republicans, Flowers’ intraparty clashes with Gov. Jack Markell’s administration have become the state’s most popular political sideshow.

Recently, the discontent has reached a boiling point.

Administration officials are now publicly questioning Flowers’ choices as the state’s top cash manager. Markell’s office cautioned Flowers against chasing “big returns” on taxpayer investments after hiring a financial consultant to monitor the portfolio. And one Markell insider recently accused Flowers of “holding a gun to the head” of state officials after he threatened to hold up a bond sale to fund a controversial Newark Charter School expansion plan. Flowers hasn’t backed down, accusing Markell’s team of “Nixon-style smear tactics” and lobbing criticisms of his own, including questioning Markell’s shaky $20 million investment in electric carmaker Fisker Automotive.

“We have sat here for 15 months and never questioned the administration. I want the governor to succeed,” Flowers said in an interview inside his office here last week. “But what we need to understand is if you’re going to be getting in the business of issuing statements talking about other elected officials, I think that’s a very dicey business to get into.” 

Flowers was having trouble getting OMB to clear hiring and contracts he needed. I understand that another DEM outsider, Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart, has had similar experiences with Jack Markell's administration but she won't go public with her story. Starkey writes "Emails obtained by The News Journal show Flowers almost constantly clashing with the Markell administration, dating to the days before his inauguration in January 2011. .....Flowers later threatened to “opt out” of the state’s regular purchase order system after failing to clear a $20,000 contract through the Office of Management and Budget, and growing impatient with a delay in receiving an after-the-fact go-ahead to cut a check. The money went to pay a contractor – who’s now a full-time staffer – tasked with preparing economic reports out of Flowers’ office.“As you both know, purchase orders are mere instruments used for accounting purposes to track expenditures and cannot be used to exercise an unconstitutional ‘veto’ authority over expenditures directed by the Delaware State Treasury in compliance with law,” Flowers told Visalli and Finance Secretary Tom Cook in a Feb. 9 email."

Delaware is still working under the 2.1 million in money management contracts signed by then Treasurer Jack Markell.

His role in managing the state’s money has become an ubiquitous source of contention for Flowers, who has questioned the value of Delaware’s Cash Management Policy Board, a public-private panel established in 1981 to manage investments in the state’s portfolio. The board includes Secretary of State Jeff Bullock, Flowers, Larson, Cook and several private-sector members. Among them are board chair John Flynn and member David Marvin, once manager of a $10 billion pension fund at the DuPont Co., who declined to comment for this story. 

......Bullock said " He is looking to take greater control, to usurp what has traditionally been the responsibility of the board to hire fund managers and make decisions about investment strategies."

....Delaware’s portfolio is currently under investment with five managers – JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, Schroders and M&T Bank. In total, the managers are paid $2.1 million annually under contracts signed during Markell’s term in the treasurer’s office, far above the Credit Suisse contract, says Flowers, who also claims credit for already increasing yield performance in the portfolio. His office expects to return more than $10 million in dividends and interest to the General Fund this year, up from earlier estimates of just over $7 million.

“We are in the situation where the portfolio is under-performing,” Flowers said, adding that the cash board meets too infrequently to solve the portfolio’s problems. “You can’t come into a meeting in June and not see you until December and expect to make good financial decisions.”