Q&A: Jeb Spaulding, Vermont State Treasurer

George B "Jeb" Spaulding, 53, is the Vermont State Treasurer, reelected to a second term in November 2004. He served eight terms in the Vermont Senate from 1985 to 2000, chairing several committees during that time.

Spaulding attended Antioch College and the University of Vermont, earning

He was the founder and general manager of WNCS-FM in Montipelier, and was a partner in Precision Media, Inc for many years. He has served on the boards of the Red Cross, United Way, Central Vermont Adult Basic Education, washington County 4-H Foundation, Child Care Fund of Vermont and Woodbury College.

Spaulding said he enjoys running, biking, hiking and cross country skiing. He has participated in sprint triathlons in recent years, and says he's in the best shape of his life.

Spaulding has been married for over 30 years to Susan Morse Spaulding, and they have two daughters, 24 and 26 years old. They live in Montpelier.

VBM: Could you give me an overview of what the state treasurer does, what your responsibilities are?

Spaulding: In a nutshell, the work of the State Treasurer's office is to protect the finances of the State of Vermont. Sometimes I even try to simplify that and say that I try to make money or save money for the state any way I can.

It starts with cash management. We're responsible for paying the bills of the state and making sure that we have enough money to pay those bills. If we don't have enough money to pay those bills, we have to go out and borrow the money, and we try to borrow it at the lowest cost we possibly can. If we have excess cash, we try to invest it at the best-return that we can. We have to have a good ability to predict what our cash flow needs are, and we're pretty good about that. We fortunately have not had any need to borrow any short term funds in the last couple of years and I don't anticipate that we will in the near future. That's the good news. We do cash flow management and debt management. We have to borrow long term funds for school construction, correctional facilities, water filtration, whatever comes along. We take care of the state's cash needs from everything from travel advances to garnishments, those banking functions. That's what most people have a pretty firm understanding of.

One of the priorities that I've had is maintaining the state's bond rating, and that relates to how you can borrow money, what the cost of money is to you. We'll talk about that a little later. The treasurer's office is also responsible for administration of the state's level of retirement system. That would be the teacher's, the state employees and the municipal employees.

VBM: There were some issues with those funds in recent months.

Spaulding: Yes. There were two sides. There's the benefits administration, and we do that. And we're also involved with investments for the pension fund. We have $2.9 billion of assets for those three funds. The teacher's retirement system has been consistently underfunded by the state for the last decade, and that was getting to possess some real problems. The legislature did create a commission on funding the Vermont state teacher's retirement system last summer, and they made the treasurer the chair. We did bring back recommendations, to the legislature this past winter, and they adopted them. It's one of those rare things.

VBM: That just happened, right?

Spaulding: Yes. Just when the Legislature went home. I'm actually really proud of that and thankful for it, getting the funding of the teacher's retirement system back on track. We were in situation where the state employees retirement system is 97 percent funded, the municipal system is over 100 percent funded, and the teacher's was getting down to around 80 percent funded. One of the issues we found that we explained to the legislature and the governor was that the actuarial method that Vermont had been using since the 1980s tended to mask the extent of under-funding and we needed to look at our funding using the industry standard of actuarial methods. When we did that we could plainly see that we were going down significantly in our funding ratio and we were putting in roughly half of what was really required to be contributed on an annual basis. So we really went to work with them, adopted a new actuarial method, reamoritized the unfunded liability and got back on track. Hopefully that will keep the funding in good stead.

Then the Legislature this year has included language that directs the treasurer to contract with an independent entity to look at the benefits of plan design for pensions and for retiree health insurance, looking for ways over the long run to make sure that what we have is sustainable looking years down the road. There are some new accounting requirements that are going to require public pension funds beginning in July 2007 to, for the first time, account for retiree health benefits in the same fashion that we do for pension benefits. If we don't pre-fund them, there are going to be severe financial reporting ramifications. That's going to be a big challenge for next year.

VBM: In handling this money and these funds, you really have to he looking decades, even 50 years, down the road.

Spaulding: With the pension funds we definitely are. It's an area that I'm very interested in. I'm the treasurer. By virtue of being involved with the retirement system for state employees, municipals and teachers, you get involved there, but it's also encouraged me to think about the retirement issue more broadly, for all Vermonters. I don't know if you saw it in today's paper.

VBM: The article on the front of the Burlington Free Press?

Spaulding: Yes. What that was was an effort to piggyback on our existing, defined contributions to retirement plans that are offered to state employees and municipalities, and allow small businesses to create some kind of 401k-type retirement plan for their employees. What we know is that millions of Americans and thousands of Vermonters are not going to have enough retirement savings to live on.

The good news is that people are living longer and the bad news is that they have been saving less. Social Security is just not going to cut the mustard, even if it's there. I hope it is, and in fact I trust that over the years we'll find a way to make sure that Social Security is secure. But it was never intended to cover all your costs. It's not going to be anywhere near enough for people. We know that. We also know that, even though most people know that you can do tax deferred savings outside of employment, 85 percent of the population doesn't do that. On the other hand, eight out of 10 people will take advantage of an employer-based retirement plan. It's easy with payroll deductions and maybe an employee match which encourages more people participate. This particular plan that was mentioned in today's paper is an attempt to realize the problem of inadequate savings and the ramifications it will have to the economy, to individuals and to government because as most people realize, in today's day and age, we don't just leave people out on the sidewalk. If they are in trouble and have inadequate resources, they end up on tax-payer supported public services. To the extent that we can encourage people to save on their own, that's going to give the taxpayers a break as well.

Hopefully, having a voluntary retirement savings option available on the economy of scale of our existing retirement plan, we can get public/private partnership going that allows, on a totally voluntary basis, small businesses and employees to get a low cost, high quality, simple, safe retirement option. I think people don't want to go through a whole lot of rigmarole to figure out how do I do this, what are the requirements?

Sometimes I've found that when people don't know, they sort of blank it out and don't want to consider it at all, or maybe they just take what the first person who comes along offers them, which is oftentimes not the low cost, high quality solution they'd like. So retirement is one of our concerns, and investing is a big issue there. With the $2.9 billion in assets, one of my proudest accomplishments in my four years as treasurer was to bring a proposal to the legislature unifying the investment process for the three independent retirement systems. While we have not merged their assets and liabilities; and they stiff have their own actuarial studies, when it comes to investing we have a unified investment committee and we invest essentially on a pooled basis where we use common investment managers and try to drive down the cost of investing. Your investment management fees are based on the size of the assets under management, so the more money you're investing under management, the lower your fees. We still can't compete with California or New York, but when you have three separate retirement funds going out to try and hire money managers on their own, whether it's real estate, large cap or international fixed income, if they hired all different managers they were paying large sums. So this way we've driven down the fees and also enhanced our ability to act in a nimble and proactive way that is necessary in today's investment climate. That's been very rewarding. It went into effect last July, and we're finishing up our first year.

I think it's been quite successful. I'm also proud of the Bank In Vermont program in the short term investment part of our cash management program. It's money that we previously would have invested outside of the state that we now invest in Vermont.

We also run the state's unclaimed property program. Every state has an unclaimed property program, and ours is handled by the treasurer's office. We're responsible for reuniting Vermonter's with any lost financial property. People ask, well, what is that? Is it just for individuals? It's actually for businesses and individuals. If you search our data base you'll find newspapers and hospitals, state government, all kinds of people. Unclaimed property is everything from uncashed pay or vendor checks to savings accounts, stock certificates that may have been misplaced, child support, gift certificates - all kinds of financial property. When an entity loses contact with a rightful owner after a prescribed length of time, usually three years, they have to turn it over to the state so that we can try and reunite the rightful owners with their property. Last year we returned about $6.5 million to about 8,000 people. I think the average size was $500 or so, though we had one that was $400,000, while some were $25 or less.

VBM: I've jumped online and checked out the website.

Spaulding: Anything there?

VBM: For Robert Smiths? Are you kidding me?

Spaulding: There were a lot of them, right?

VBM: Oh yes, but nothing that quite fit me. Lately I hear you talking almost daily about this program on the radio in a public service announcement.

Spaulding: We're trying that as an experiment. It's the first time that we've done it. We've always, and actually by statute, are required to run newspaper advertisements in the counties with papers with daily circulation. We've asked for the legislature to give us a little more flexibility there. This past year we did an insert instead of running a display advertisement. It saved a little money. We We've allocated money this year to run a threeweek radio spot, which we're in right now, to see what kind of reaction we'd get. At the very least, through today, we've tripled the website searches and claims. That doesn't mean we're going to do it on a regular basis, but we want to see if it works. We'd heard from other states that it had significantly increased the total number of claims fulfilled.

The reason that we're doing it at this time of year is that, by law, entities are required to file their annual unclaimed property reports by May 1, and we wanted to get our data system upgraded to have the latest information when we went out to advertise. It's been pretty successful. If you do mention it, it's www.missingmoney.vt.gov. It's one of the exciting things that the treasurer gets to do. I think my job is the best job in state government because the work of the treasurer's office is very concrete. I spent 16 years in the state senate and I loved it for most of those years, although I was ready to leave by the end. But when you're working on policy issues, a lot of the time you work real hard and it never goes anywhere. Or if you do pass something you wonder year's later, did it really have any impact on people the way we had hoped? But with the treasure's office, if you don't have enough money to meet payroll, people are going to be real unhappy. If your bond rating goes down, it's going to cost the state of Vermont money and people here are going to be unhappy. So it's very concrete work.

VBM: It seems there are very specific things that you do that will have a very positive or negative effect on people, depending on how well you do your job.

Spaulding: Right, and my approach to it is that I feel like I am part of Team Vermont. Although I'm a Democrat and the Governor is a Republican, we're on the same team. And I'm on the same team as the State Auditor (Randy Brock). When it comes to representing Vermont's financial interests we have to see things on the same page and I think we do. We try real hard, and that doesn't always mean that we agree on the issues. We try to do it one to one, and we try to work together.

For example, Vermont does currently have the highest bond rating of any New England state, AA+. There's one rating higher, AAA. The Governor and I share a desire that Vermont seriously ask for that rating from the three rating agencies Moody, Standard and Poor, and Fitch. At least annually we have to go through a rating agency review. But last fall we said we really want to give these agencies our pitch as to why Vermont should be viewed as a AAA rating. So the Governor and I and Randy Brock and David Coates, the senior member of the Capital Debt Affordability Advisory Committee, went down to New York City together and visited all three of the rating agencies in one day. I think it was a pretty good team effort. I try to work with finance and management and the Secretary of Administration and the auditors office. I think the auditor (Randy Brock) has done an remarkable job in getting us to the situation from where we were - a year-minimum late in producing our audited financial statement to where we are now - six months, and that's the industry standard.

VBM: I interviewed Randy and we talked about this a few months ago.

Spaulding: I saw that. That doesn't mean we agree on all the issues. I don't view this as a highly political office. I like doing my job. I find it interesting. We're striving for continuous improvement, but we're not trying to stray out of what the treasurer's office should really be doing. I don't want to turn it into a political office. The retirement ideas we're discussing are a natural for us.

The Bank In Vermont program is just that traditionally our short term cash has been invested in either government sponsored agencies Sallie Maes and so on or in very high quality corporate commercial paper, short term loans with GE, Bank of America, Citigroup or someone like that, or large out of state money market outfits like Fidelity. We thought if we could find a way to invest some of those funds in state banks and get a competitive return, wouldn't that be a good thing to do. So we now have the Bank In Vermont Treasurer's Program. We now have on a monthly basis $40 million that was invested out of state that is now invested in Vermont banks.

We set up a monthly bidding program. We tell them on the first Tuesday of every month, "okay, this month we have $10 million maturing, so we're going to put out $2 million for 30 days, $3 million for 60 days, however it works out, and you have until 11 tomorrow morning to put in your bid." Then we fill it top to bottom. It goes to the bigger banks, but also to some of the smaller ones like Union Bank, Randolph Bank, Connecticut River and so on. And, we're getting better returns than we were getting before.

That's a real interest of mine - to look for ways that we can use our resources to support instate economic and community development, consistent with our fiduciary responsibility. We need to earn the best risk-adjusted returns that we can, either on our short term investing, in our pension funds, or wherever. It's not easy to do, unfortunately. What we can't do is take a substandard return just to support economic community development. If the legislature wants to tell us to do that, they can, but I have to first look out for the people's money, recognizing that it's not mine. For example, we recently renewed an investment with the Vermont Community Loan Fund and we did it at very competitive rates. Id put those rates up against any other investment I could get. I'm glad they're willing to work with us. Sometimes we have groups that are looking for us to give them a deal, and it's not like you wouldn't want to help them, but that's not what we're able to do. I'm very proud of that particular program. Another thing that the treasurer gets to do that's sort of fun is that you get to serve on a whole host of important boards in Vermont. The board of the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation, of the Vermont Economic Development Authority, the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, the Vermont Bond Bank, and you learn a tremendous amount. The reason you're assigned to them is to make sure that you're looking out for the people's money. It's a fairly significant responsibility, and it's cut back on all the local community boards that I served on. I don't have the time to do that so much anymore. The VSAC has over a billion dollars in student loans, so it's essentially like a large bank, and after the Enrons and so forth, I think the world expects board members to be fairly vigilant. The other thing is that the treasurer can be a trusted advisor to the Governor and the legislature on issues that they are considering, whether it's how to solve the underfunding of the teacher's retirement system or how to keep our spending track sustainable. The legislature this year had questions about the Vermont scholarship program. We try to do it in a low key way, but you have the opportunity, especially if you do it in a low key way, to be somebody that people turn to for advice.

So a lot of what the treasurer's office does is administrative and very I concrete, but we also have the ability to look for ways to use our resources to support improvement in economic, and community life and to offer advice to governors and legislators on fiscal issues.

VBM: When you went to New York to try to up your bond rating, what was the result? What are the chances you'll get a AAA rating, and what do you have to do to get it?

Spaulding: That's an excellent question. What they tell us is that Vermont is already a highly rated state, so recognize that. That's the first thing they said. "Look, you guys," they said. "You're ire already AA+, it doesn't get a whole lot higher than that. We respect a lot of what you're doing." They feel that Vermont is a very financially well - managed state, not-with-standing the problems that we were having with our timely financial state statements. That was a sore spot, and we knew that. But by the time that we went down there last fall, we knew that we'd pretty much gotten that solved. That was a positive."

They actually very, very much appreciated some of the mechanisms that we have in the state that keep spending and debt issuance under control. We have a Capitol Debt Affordability Advisory Committee that was set up in 1990, I believe. The treasurer is the chair of that too. Annually, we recommend to the governor and the legislature on how much new debt we can authorize and issue without having negative consequences going forward. And the governors and the legislatures have never veered from the recommendation of committee. So these rating agencies who are waiting to see how secure your bonds are relative to where else people can park their money appreciate that. They know there is discipline.

We've made tremendous strides, really, since Howard Dean became Governor. Howard Dean, no matter what else you say about him, when it came to debt and spending, he was a fiscal conservative. No question about it.

VBM: It always made me laugh when there was all this media hype about Dean being this ultra-liberal when he was running for President. I was like, wait a second, is this our Howard Dean?

Spaulding: It's true. My view on what happened there is, I don't think it's a liberal/conservative issue, but he was very clear on his opposition to the war in Iraq before we went in. That sort of endeared him to, and made him look like the darling of, the left wing and the anti-war movement. But that was just a small part of Howard Dean.

VBM: Dean helped create some pretty excellent surpluses in the state budget, right?

Spaulding: Oh yes.

VBM: And we're seeing another budget surplus for this year?

Spaulding: Right. I think we could end up this year with, say, a $40 million surplus. That would be pushing the upper side of it but it could easily be in the upper-30s.

In any case, the bond rating firms appreciate the Capitol Debt Affordability Advisory Committee, because we seem to be able to keep a lid on our debt. Around 1990 we were in the top 10 in the country in debt per capita and debt as percentage of personal income, and now we're down below medium, and we have a really strong story to tell there.

The agencies also like the fact that we have a joint revenue forecasting process twice a year that really works.

VBM: What is that?

Spaulding: Twice a year the Emergency Board, which is made up of the Governor and the legislative financial leaders, get together with the Governor's economist and the legislature's economist and they develop a consensus revenue forecast and bring it to the Emergency Board, where it is adopted. You don't have a governor saying, 'Well, I think that this much money is going to come in," and a legislature saying, "Yeah, but we think only this much money is going to come in." There is a revenue forecast, and everyone lives by it. It tends to allow you to build your budgets around a realistic revenue forecast.

We have been fairly conservative in that regard, too.

VBM: Has that contributed to the budget surpluses?

Spaulding: Yes. But there is a lot going on out there, though, that makes you wonder how long it's going to last. I think that most people believe that the real estate market has been driving a lot of the revenue, and capital gains both in real estate and in investments. It would be my recommendation to legislators today to let's be cautious. Let's not develop a lot of new spending programs. In fact I'm very nervous in looking forward to healthcare and Medicaid pension costs, to transportation costs. They are daunting when you look forward. The single issue that keeps them from raising our bond rating is concern about the breadth and depth of our economy in Vermont. How strong is our economy, looking forward? Do we over-rely on one or two very large employers that are international, global companies that could on fairly short notice decide that they want to be somewhere else? What would happen to our economy? We put a lot of effort in trying to demonstrate that our economy is broader than they know. We had Standard and Poor up here in the winter, and in two weeks Moody is coming up for a full day. Their primary thrust is to find out what is going on with our economy. We'll be presenting panel sessions throughout the day with people like VEDA and the Economic Development Department, but we'll also do a panel on financial services in Vermont. We'll be having someone from Dwight Asset Management, somebody from National Life, somebody from the captive insurance industry. We'll be having a session on higher education, both as an industry sector in and of itself right now, but also as - a key driver of the economy of the future in Vermont. Then we'll be going out and visiting Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which is growing dramatically. It's a great company and doing fine. Then we'll go to IBM, because they are always wondering about IBM. It's a good thing that there's a "Hiring - Please Come to See Us" sign outside of IBM right now! We'll be explaining to them to make sure that they understand what we are doing to try to increase the breadth of our economy. That's the main issue that they are concerned about.

VBM: How big is your department?

Spaulding: We have 37 employees.

VBM: And you work most closely with the administration and the state auditor?

Spaulding: We work most closely with the Department of Finance and Management, which is under the Agency of the Administration and the governor. We work with the auditor if there are ways that we can be helpful. They are the auditor, and my view on that is that when they find things that need to be improved, that's what they are there for. It's not a bad thing - well it might be if they find that there are some intentional issues going on! Auditing is an important function, and you have to try and make sure that you're developing controls to avoid issues.

VBM: Has it been easy to work with Jim Douglas and Randy Brock?

Spaulding: Yes. No problems. Not at all.

VBM: How did you come to this office? You told me earlier that a few years ago you wouldn't have believed that you'd be here.

Spaulding: If somebody had said to me five years ago, "Why don't you think about being state treasurer?" I would have said, "Why?" It was not something I aspired to. Robert, I spent 16 years in the state Senate. I did a lot of different things there. I was the chair of the Education Committee for a number of years. In the last four years I was chair of the Appropriations Committee and chair of the Joint Fiscal Committee. Some people thought that, when Jim Douglas ran for Governor and there was a vacancy, that I'd be a good fit for the position.

I had left the state Senate about a year and a half earlier. Sixteen years was plenty. I probably shouldn't tell you what really happened, but Peter Shumlin called me up and said that he was going to run for lieutenant governor, and I half-heartedly said, "Peter, I hope we don't have to run against each other, because I don't know what I'm going to do with myself." He said, "You ought to think about being state treasurer." I said, "Why?" Then I got a couple of other calls, and I started thinking about it. I thought that ,maybe my background does mesh. Id also been a small business person and understood basic finance. So I decided to get into the race.

My background, Robert, was that my wife and I, after graduating from the University of Vermont, moved to Montpelier and started an IM radio station, called The Point now. We ran that for a number of years. My brothers and I got involved in a small group that had a couple of other radio stations in New England. So my primary background is as a broadcaster. I still love it. I still relate to broadcasting. I believe in radio and I believe it works. We can demonstrate that it does, because we keep track of our hits on our website and our claims. Somewhere along the line I decided to run for the state senate. We've lived here in Montpelier for 30 years.

VBM: Were you born in Vermont?

Spaulding: No. I was raised in Massachusetts, but I'm a Vermonter by choice, and I hope I never have to move out. It means a lot to me to have the opportunity I have to try to make this a better state. I love the state of Vermont and I would do anything to play a role in making it a place that will be great for people in the future. I actually am not persuaded that we should try to convince our high school students that they should all go to college in Vermont, that that is the best way to keep them in Vermont. I think that there is probably some value in some Vermont students going out to see the rest of the world and if we have enough interesting things and well paying jobs, they'll come back here. That's the main issue why our young people don't stay here, because there are not good paying jobs for them here. We've got to work on that. Sometimes I think, "Okay, maybe if we spent $175 million and said that from the time you graduate until you're 30 years old you can pay half income tax here," then maybe we could get young people to come and stay here.

VBM: Is treasurer an elected position in most states?

Spaulding: That's a good question. It is in most states,, but not in all. I don't really have a position on that one way or the other. In most states it's elected. The second most prevalent, and it's a lot less, is that the treasurer is elected by the legislature, as in New Hampshire and Maine. In a few states, you're appointed by the governor, so you're a member of the governor's cabinet. My observation, and it may be wrong, is that you have the greatest chance of getting professionals if they are appointed by the governor, the greatest chance of them being a pure politician if they are elected by the legislature as they often tend to be former legislators elected by their peers, and the ones who are elected statewide can be either way.

VBM: Is it a two year term, and what do you think of the two year term?

Spaulding: It is. I think two year terms are not in the best interest of the citizens of Vermont. I didnt really realize how it relates to the second tier offices - secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, attorney general - but these are not primarily policy making offices. You're primarily administrative and ministerial. It means that every other year you're taking a lot of time away from doing real work that needs to be done. When I was in the state senate, three times I worked as hard as I could to get the Constitution amended for four year terms, and was never successful. I can tell you what the ultimate reason is, because I've been through it a lot. The question really comes down to the balance of power between the executive and the legislative branches. The question is, "Are you going to give legislators four year terms, too?" If you're not, there are a number of legislators that believe four year terms for the governor and two year terms for the legislators, that in the off-election years for the governor, the governor could be very involved in working for or against legislators with no risk for themselves. Therefore it somehow has destroyed the balance between the executive and legislative branch. Then there are other people who say they are for four years for the governor and statewide maybe, but they don't see why they should do it for the legislature. That's where it gets bogged down. It's letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. We're stuck with the worst of all worlds, as far as I can tell. I personally don't see the need to have four year terms for legislators, but if that's what it would take to do it...

VBM: In an interview with Governor Douglas at the end of his first year in office, he said that he already had a declared opponent, and he'd only been in office 12 months!

Spaulding: No doubt about it, human nature being what it is, people are not going to take the kind of risks leaders sometimes need to take if they know that there is an election in sight and they know someone is going to be trying to find a way to hold them accountable. Essentially what it does, and I remember Phil Hoff saying this, that two year terms lead to short term fixes to long-term problems, and we don't need that.

VBM: What do you see as the biggest issue facing Vermont?

Spaulding: I see, and Robert I'm not here to suggest I have the solution right now, but to me the biggest problems facing the state of Vermont is the mismatch between the desire for services by the public and our ability to pay for them. Whether it's property tax, income tax, or sales tax there is a high tax burden in Vermont. Increasingly it's a competitive world out there. I'm all for fair and progressive taxes, but we have to recognize that at some point people can take their marbles and go somewhere else. That mismatch between what people want and what they are willing to pay for is troubling.

I also think that we have to work very hard so that we make sure that we have a variety of good paying jobs. Leftover from my legislative days when I was chairing the education committee, my final conclusion was that, if you really want educational success, you need healthy families with children. That means reasonably well-paying jobs for people. Even though I have some differences on the specifics of the Governor's Vermont Scholarship Program.

I completely agree on the need to make higher education affordable and the role that it can play in our economic future. I think we also have to consider how our tax policy influences that as well.

The cost of healthcare is another one of those affordability issues that relates to the burden people have, and on the flip side, the services that people think they want. What are they willing to pay for it? Ile pension system and the healthcare benefits that we provide for state employees, teachers and so on, active and retired, as treasurer, I have to see that they are sustainable over the long run. People are living longer and retiring earlier. That's a wonderful thing, but it's very expensive. We have to, in the next year, take a hard look at whether we do have sustainable retirement systems and healthcare benefits. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have to make some difficult decisions there.

One thing I didn't talk about, is that when I can, I encourage and support good corporate governance and in-state investment. We've adopted proxy voting guidelines for our investments on things like corporate governance and climate change issues. I participate with an investor's network that tries to use its investment resources to encourage publicly traded companies to take the issue of global climate change seriously. I think that global warming is a huge, longterm economic risk for the state of Vermont. I actually enjoy the opportunity to be a little bit active on that end as well.

VBM: I was listening to Terry Gross interview with New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin on NPR. He has a new book titled The North Pole Was Here, and he said that while the exact causes may not be known, global climate change is certainly a fact.

Spaulding- I haven't seen the Al Gore movie yet, but to me, the evidence is indisputable. When you look at what's happening to the North Pole ice pack...

VBM: They discussed the movie in the interview. Is there anything that we haven't discussed that you wanted to include in the interview?

Spaulding: I think we've covered just about everything. For what it's worth, you can go through life thinking that the glass is half empty or half full. I think the glass is definitely half full in Vermont. In a post9/11 world we are better positioned than ever. We do have an excellent education system in Vermont. We have more higher education institutions in Vermont per capita than any other state. That bodes very well for us. Environment is becoming more and more important to the wide world, and to the extent that we can keep up with information technology and telecommunications infrastructure, combined with that environment and with our education system, well, we're going to be more and more attractive to people that can live anywhere and work somewhere else. I actually think that we have a very bright future ahead, if we're careful.