KSAZ: Arizona in Good Fiscal Shape

PHOENIX - The Arizona state treasurer's office is responsible for protecting tax payer's money -- and a lot of that money is invested in the stock market.

The good news is, people in charge of that money say those investments are safe.

Deputy Treasurer Mark Swenson says they're monitoring the stock market very closely.

"We watch it throughout the day we start at 5 a.m. east coast time when the markets begin to open and the bond markets at 8 a.m. we're here till after markets close Eastern Time and then some," says Swenson.

Despite the country's credit downgrade and blood bath on Wall Street Monday, Swenson's not worried and has this message for taxpayers: "Their investments at the treasurer's office are safe despite all the market turmoil in the last week."

That's because taxpayer dollars are carefully spent.

"85 percent of what we do is fixed income products, and so those investments are very safe, investment grade bonds is all we buy," he says. "We have a philosophy of safety first followed by liquidity and earnings and that's what we hold to."

Swenson says the federal credit downgrade trickled down to a few individual projects in cities, funded by federal dollars, but he says overall the state wasn't affected.

"The state is in a much better financial position than it was well over a year ago. We have a billion dollars cash on hand compared to 15 months ago when we were having to borrow money every day just to pay salaries and the lighting bill."

Swenson says he expects the state to make even more money on its investments this year than last year -- despite the market turmoil.

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