State Treasurer Dean Martin (photo by Capitol Media Services)
The office of Arizona State Treasurer conjures up images of dull and endless number-crunching where financial analysts track billions of dollars held (usually) in safe investments. The person at the top, the elected treasurer, often is more figurehead than financial wizard, and certainly doesn’t get any credit for doing the job as voters expect. Only when a treasurer makes some kind of mistake does anyone seem to notice whose in office (ask David Petersen of Mesa).
The office of treasurer definitely never has been the place from which to launch a successful bid for governor or a similar office. But the current treasurer, Dean Martin, apparently will try to change that.
Martin managed to publicly irritate Gov. Janet Napolitano Wednesday when he went to the media to say the state is rapidly running out of cash and the Napolitano administration doesn’t appear to be slowing down on spending at all. The timing of Martin’s news conference was no coincidence – just 30 minutes before Napolitano’s traditional weekly sit-down with reporters in her Capitol office. As Martin had hoped, those pesky journalists put Napolitano on the defensive as they peppered her with questions using his budget numbers.
Napolitano might have a point that Martin doesn’t have the complete picture, given the complexity of government funding and spending. But Martin’s perspective is fairly easy for everyday people to understand: how much money do we have in the checking account and in savings? How much money comes in every month? And how much money is going out the door?
By Martin’s accounting, the state of Arizona will start bouncing checks by May 5, and he can’t touch the savings accounts to cover them until the governor and the Legislature take some kind of action on the budget.
I last wrote about Martin after he met with the Tribune Editorial Board to provide on an update on what his office does. From that meeting and other hints I see, it’s clear Martin is angling to elevate his public profile. And we know he’s keeping an eye on the governor’s office simply because he’s started to mention in his news releases that he’s third in the line of succession (behind Secretary of State Jan Brewer and Attorney General Terry Goddard).
Now, Martin has an issue that’s perfect fit with his persona as a conservative Republican and his job as treasurer. He can put pressure Napolitano from a different direction and aid his former colleagues in the Legislature who want to force deeper budget cuts on the governor.
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