Bio
Coumba Kebe is a first generation American and a native of Indianapolis. She attended Franklin Central High School before earning a Bachelor’s degree in Community Health and Preventive Medicine and a Master’s degree of Public Health in Health Policy and Management from Indiana University. She has spent 10 years working at the intersection of healthcare, public policy and business operations. Kebe’s top priorities include helping Hoosiers access financial programs and resources, providing greater transparency of state finances and focusing on long term planning.
Q&A
Why are you running for Indiana State Treasurer?
I’m running for office because I, as an executive and an entrepreneur who’s been in the home care space and the healthcare space for the last 10 years of my career, have watched our state go from investing in taking care of our most vulnerable, including our seniors and our disabled population, to making a lot of policy and financial decisions that were hurting the people that I serve and continue to hurt the people that I serve. In addition to hurting everyday Hoosiers, I also understood that these decisions were going to have massive consequences on our workforce and our economy. Like many other folks, I advocated in the ways that I knew how, whether that was on social media, at the state house, through advocacy groups or by calling my representatives, hoping that they would listen to us, because from my perspective, this wasn’t a partisan issue. But unfortunately, like many others, I was ignored, and in that moment I realized that advocating wasn’t enough and that it was important to enter the field of politics, which led me to running for office. As for why state treasurer specifically? Because the state treasurer is responsible for investing billions of our taxpayer dollars, and we were consistently told that we didn’t have money to take care of our aging population or our disabled population, but somehow we continue to celebrate savings in our reserves. To me, those two stories didn’t add up. You don’t have money to take care of people, but you’re celebrating the reserve? The state treasurer is not only responsible for investing those dollars but also has a responsibility for transparency and accountability to the taxpayer. I felt like there were so many unanswered questions, and as I traveled the state and talked to people, I found out it’s not just me. A lot of everyday Hoosiers are asking the question: “Well, if I’m paying into the system and I’m investing in this system as a taxpayer, why do I not feel the benefit that we’re celebrating?” We need to be able to peel back the curtain on our finances and ask the questions: Where are our taxpayer dollars going? How are they being invested? And how do these decisions impact us long term when it comes to economic success and financial stability? So that’s why I wanted to run for state treasurer, to follow the money and better understand that and report that back to the Hoosiers.
What would be your top priority if elected?
My top priority would be to understand our current investment profile and make sure that we can report that out in plain English language to the people, because the treasurer doesn’t create policy, right? They serve on critical boards that make decisions across the state of Indiana, so having an understanding of how money is moving in our state, where it’s going, how it’s being allocated and understanding our investment profile and reporting that back to everyday Hoosiers to make sure that they are informed and knowledgeable about how their taxpayer dollars are being financed, so that they can then do the right thing and hold their legislative bodies accountable.
What does upholding fiduciary responsibility mean to you?
To me, that means protecting taxpayer dollars, making low-risk investments, and ensuring that we maximize returns and that the dollars work for people for the state of Indiana when we need them. It means following the law, and it means reporting to the people. This office is not about leveraging taxpayer dollars to make political and partisan statements. It’s simply about safekeeping our dollars and ensuring that these investments work best for people.
What in your background or experience do you feel has prepared you to serve in this office specifically?
Yeah, so I would say a couple things. One, in my career, I’ve spent 10 years in the healthcare space, but I spent four to five of that as a director of operations, managing multi-million-dollar budgets across the state of Indiana. I was the person responsible for managing our operating expenses, managing our budgets and making sure that we understood how those decisions would impact people. But on the flip side, I also have a master’s degree in public health, and what public health teaches us is that policy and financial decisions don’t happen in isolation. When you make a policy decision, there’s a consequence to the broader system, right? We make policy decisions, which have an impact on our workforce, our economy, our healthcare system and so on. Having that holistic systems thinking and future thinking is one of the biggest advantages that I can bring to the office, and that holistic systems and long-term thinking is largely missing at our state house. Right now, we think budget to budget, session to session and headline to headline, and I hope to bring a different perspective to the office.
The state of Indiana is currently holding nearly $4 billion in reserves. As treasurer, how would you approach managing and investing the state’s reserves?
My priority would always be to make sure that any investment that we make maximizes returns for the Hoosiers and makes sense for the taxpayer. But also, having those $4 billion in reserves while so many Hoosiers are actively suffering requires the treasurer to ask questions. How did we get this massive reserve? Did we cut critical programs to ensure that we have this reserve? Because it doesn’t make sense to me that we have 20,000 plus people waiting on a Medicaid waiver wait list, we have rural hospitals that are shutting down and we have schools and local governments that are starving for resources with these funds in reserve. So, as a state treasurer, your job isn’t just to invest and maximize returns. It’s to alert and say, “Hey, sure, it’s great we have reserves, a state needs to have reserves, but what decisions are we making that could potentially be consequential to our economic and financial future?” and that’s a question that we should be asking around our reserves, given how much people are suffering in the state of Indiana.
Why should voters support you?
Voters should support me because I bring a new perspective and a different, fresh energy to the office. My responsibility is not to a political party, my responsibility is to the people. I am running as a Democrat and I am proud to be running as a Democrat, but the reality is that the state treasurer’s office is not about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about the Hoosier taxpayer, who’s the number one investor in our system, and making sure that the system works for them by asking the right questions and ensuring that they have the knowledge and understanding of how their taxpayer dollars are working for them. That’s it.
