Episode 7: County Treasurer and September Financial Literacy Month

Take less than 10 minutes and hear from the new Jefferson County Treasurer Angela Webb-Weinberg. The Commission will approve this week a special resolution making September Financial Literacy Month in Jefferson County. Hear why she is so passionate about this topic and bringing information and events to the citizens of Jefferson County to help them be prepared at all stages of life.

Want to learn more? Visit the Treasurer's webpage for upcoming events and information. 

Have an idea for a County podcast? Contact the Director of Public Information, Helen Hays at haysh@jccal.org

Transcript

Speaker 0:10

Welcome everybody to the Jefferson County Podcast for the People. I'm your host today, Helen Hayes. I'm the Director of Public Information for Jefferson County. And I'm really excited to have the new treasurer with us today, Angela Webb Weinberg. And she is joining us to talk about, I don't believe we've ever done a podcast with the treasurer. So I'm really excited to have you, Angela, and appreciate you joining us. Why don't you start by just telling us a little bit about your journey to this office and what the position is?

Speaker 1 0:46

Okay. Good morning, everybody. And thank you, Helen, for having me. And I'm excited, as you can hear, in my voice, about just being able to represent Jefferson County. This was a great journey. It wasn't my road, but God placed me. Got elected in January. The reason why this office is so important to me is because of the community reinvestment that we can reinvest back into the community. We partner with a lot of banks here in Jefferson County and do a lot of re and we have a lot of resources, but a lot of our communities out of those 35 cities are the ones that are being affected. And finance to me is so important because my parents talked to me as a child about what it is to make sure that I had great credit and making sure that my bills were paid on time and just making sure that I was a great steward with my money. So that's something that I'm trying to instill into my kids as well as our community.

Speaker 1:50

Well, I appreciate that. I can remember when I was a teenager and my parents got me a checkbook, and I was like, what? And then they were like, Well, you have to track what you write down. And I was like, What? It's you know, it's a lot, but those are great things that financial literacy is really important to learn at a young age. And I think even more so today, because you've got all these apps, right? That you can do on your phone, you can cash app, you can Venmo. So there's a lot happening in the world of finance and it's changing. Technically, the responsibilities of your office, how would you describe those?

Speaker 1 2:31

So we are the safeguard of all of our taxpayers' dollars that come into Jefferson County. What that means is we have the responsibility to pay all of the bills as well as safeguarding any of our investments. When that money comes in through property tax, um, sales tax, and different things like that, that money is sent over to us and we invest it with our banks. And to make sure that we're getting the amount of uh interest that we can on our money so our money can work for us.

Speaker 3:03

Absolutely, just like anybody would. I mean, handling smart money, right? Yes. All right, so now here's the fun question. What extra are you bringing to the table? Because I know you've got some plans for some really good things.

Speaker 1 3:20

I am excited. Um, we do have national financial literacy in April, but to have a specific financial literacy for the county, I think is one of the exciting portions of me being in office because now we get to equip everyone seniors, students, working families, and small business owners with the tools and knowledge to make strong financial decisions. One of the things my staff and I have done is we've created a resolution and gave it to the the county commission to be able to say that um September is gonna be financial literacy month.

Speaker 4:01

And and the commission is is passing that resolution. I think September is gonna be a great month, and we're gonna make sure that we include all the events that you have planned in the county e-newsletter and on our social media pages so that people can take part in those events and take advantage of them. I think especially, you know, you mentioned seniors, and I my dad is 94 and I talk about him a lot, but there's a lot of fraud out there for seniors, you know, and so I think there's a lot of education that can continue to be done, you know, about what they what they shouldn't do and what people will not ask for, right? Um, yeah, he gave his social security number to somebody the other day, and we had to freeze his his credit, which is horrible. It made things really difficult. And we're like, don't do that.

Speaker 1 4:54

Well, and that that's our vulnerable population, unfortunately. And um, there's so many scams out there. There are charity scams, there are banking scams, they're just you know political scams, they're everything that you can think of. One of the things that we need to do is that we've got to be very diligent on making sure that our elderly population, as you all did, making sure that each each account is taken care of, as well as preparing. Um, in May, I lost my mom, having the ordeal of having to make sure that everything was taken care of after she left. You know, we're equipping our our students and as well as our elderly on working for that because nobody wants to think about what happens after. Well, we we've been giving away books that talk about what happens after that person passes, a timeline. There are certain times that you have to have things to be able to, um, Social Security, um, any of their VA benefits, insurance, death certificates, all of that information coming in that has to have a certain timeline to be able to meet. And that's, you know, that's a part of financial literacy as well, because preparing and making sure that that, you know, unfortunate um situation is something that you know you've got to handle. I did not want to handle it. And I it's me and my brother. And so being the oldest, you know, unfortunately, we have to take care of that. And financial literacy is not just about a checkbook, it's about everything.

Speaker 6:27

Right. It it really is. And, you know, I'm glad we've talked a little bit about our personal stories because I think sometimes citizens don't realize we're people, we're dealing with these things too. And that's, and I think it's a benefit, you know, that we bring to the table is we're dealing with these things just like citizens are dealing with these things. So we want to help provide the information that when you know those unfortunate times happen, that you can be better prepared for it because man, if you're not, it can be a really, it can compound a really sad time. And so we don't want to do that. So I really appreciate you talking a little bit about that. Educating our our kids and our citizens is really important, and then our senior population too. Um, is there anything else that you guys have planned maybe on into the fall season?

Speaker 1 7:24

Yes. So we're we're we're preparing to do not only um all the stuff for the initiatives, but we're gonna do workshops. We're gonna do, we're gonna have resources for not just seniors, but also getting into the schools. Um, we're talking about school programs, we're talking about community partnership with all of our branches and banks and financial institutions in Jefferson County uh because it's not just the partner banks that we work with, it's everybody. So the this may be a bank that you don't bank with, but they are also responsible for community reinvestment. And that's a federal law. And I'm so excited to be you know bringing this to the forefront. But banks are supposed to be responsible and um bringing community reinvestment back into our communities.

Speaker 8:12

Well, that's fabulous information, Angela. I really thank you for joining us today. And we'll do this again, right? Oh, definitely. We will.

Speaker 1 8:21

I enjoyed it. And um, if if anybody needs anything, we're on the third floor and we're here. And we're just excited to get it started.

Speaker 8:29

Absolutely. And we'll link you guys have a web page and you have a lot of great information on your webpage as well. So we'll link to that in our show notes. I want to thank everybody for joining us on the Jefferson County Podcast for the people. If you have ideas of um topics that you want to hear more about, please reach out to me. You can email me. My email address is Hayes H A Y S H at JCCAL.org. And we'll see you next time on the podcast for the people.