The Treasurer's Office manages the State's Pooled Money Investment Account, which invests monies on behalf of state government and local jurisdictions to help them manage their fiscal affairs.

The Treasurer serves on the boards of the Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS). CalPERS and CalSTRS are significant investors/stockholders in the American and global economies. The pension funds provide for the retirement of their members and also perform a variety of other services for them. As an example, CalPERS is the second largest purchaser of health care services in the country.

The State Treasurer’s Office was created in the California Constitution in 1849. It provides financing for schools, roads, housing, recycling and waste management, hospitals, public facilities, and other crucial infrastructure projects that better the lives of residents.

One committee Treasurer Ma chairs, the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority (CAEATFA), helps clean and green our state. It awards sales tax exclusions for manufacturers that reduce pollution, while retaining jobs, including to companies that make electric vehicles, turn farm waste into energy, and produce jet fuel out of renewable sources.

California is the world’s fourth-largest economy and Treasurer Ma is the state’s primary banker. Her office processes approximately $3 trillion in payments within a typical year and provides transparency and oversight for an investment portfolio that has ranged from $155 billion to $175 billion over the past 6 months, over $20 billion of which are local government funds. She also is responsible for over $80 billion in outstanding general obligation and lease revenue bonds of the state.

Most recently before being elected Treasurer, she was an elected member of the California Board of Equalization from 2015 until January 2019 and worked to protect the rights of taxpayers while ensuring California collected its fair share of tax revenues. Her district covered 23 counties in California and included approximately 9.5 million people. Upon being selected Chairperson of the Board of Equalization in 2016, she ordered three external audits of the agency and helped lead the biggest reforms for accountability and efficiency in that agency’s history.

A top priority for her on the Board of Equalization was ensuring that everyone pays their fair share of taxes, including efforts to require online-retailers such as Amazon to collect sales taxes on transactions from third-party sellers in order to help local brick-and-mortar retailers compete ‘ ultimately generating new revenues estimated between $431 million and $1.8 billion for California every year. She also advocated for taxing e-cigarettes similarly to other tobacco products ‘ deterring vaping and smoking and paying for health costs related to tobacco use. In 2017, voters passed Proposition 56 with two-thirds of the vote, collecting $1.7 billion in new tobacco taxes to fund anti-smoking programs and Medi-Cal payments for the poor.

Also while on the Board of Equalization, she identified the cannabis industry as the largest shadow economy in California with ‘hundreds of millions of dollars that disappear into an underground cannabis economy’ and led efforts to regulate the industry, develop systems to ‘track and trace’ all cannabis in California, and develop legal banking mechanisms for cannabis businesses.

Also while on the Board of Equalization, she identified the cannabis industry as the largest shadow economy in California with ‘hundreds of millions of dollars that disappear into an underground cannabis economy’ and led efforts to regulate the industry, develop systems to ‘track and trace’ all cannabis in California, and develop legal banking mechanisms for cannabis businesses.