The Wisconsin state Treasurer says the state can do more to help people plan for retirement. State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski is heading up a new retirement Task Force created by Governor Tony Evers to study issues facing the growing number of retired people in Wisconsin, particularly the amount of money they have saved. “I’m coming from the finance industry. I was an investor prior to becoming state Treasurer and I know there’s a lot of innovative things in the private sector that we could be thinking about employing here in the public sector,” Godlewski told WFDL news. Godlewski says the group will also look at best practices in other states and countries. She says the state of Oregon has created a public Roth IRA program. “Within their first two years they had over 100,000 people join and they created a retirement fund of over $20 million,” Godlewski said. “…but that might not be the solution for Wisconsin, and so we want to make sure that we are afraid to ask hard questions.” The Task Force will include members of Evers’ administration, lawmakers, retirees, representatives from the business community, the financial services industry and organized labor. The task force plans to hold public meetings starting in October and plans to release its recommendations in August.
