The only constitutional duty remaining for the treasurer is serving on the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, which manages a $1.1 billion endowment that provided about $36 million to school libraries in 2018.

Adamczyk did not return calls for comment but has previously said the responsibility serving on the board “literally consists of two 15-minute phone calls per month.”

Elected in 2015, he ran for the position on the platform of eliminating it. He whittled staff down until he was the only one left.

The office’s budget shrunk from $544,800 in fiscal years 2014 and 2015 to $113,500 in fiscal years 2018 and 2019, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

He called the changes a “symbolic victory for smaller government.”

Taxpayer savings

In most states, the treasurer holds considerable power, according to National Association of State Treasurers executive director Shaun Snyder. Aside from Wisconsin, he said he was unfamiliar with other states shifting substantial powers away from elected treasurers to agencies controlled by the governor’s office.

But that’s what has happened to the treasurer’s office in Wisconsin starting in the mid-1990s.