CHEYENNE (WNE) — Earlier this year, the Wyoming Legislature passed several major reforms to increase the amount of money from major state financial pools invested in the stock market, as well as how hands-on the state was with its investment strategy.

Those reforms have already saved Wyoming millions and helped to attract talent that might not have come to the Equality State.

Patrick Fleming, Wyoming’s chief investment officer, said during a June meeting of the Select Committee on Capital Financing and Investments that Wyoming was on track to save about $24 million in fees it would have paid to outside investment managers.

By focusing on bringing more of the state’s investment management in-house, Wyoming is seeing significant savings, while still maintaining its funds performance, Fleming said.

Currently, the state is budgeting about $6 million for the biennium for the internal investment team, which has expanded significantly to handle the extra work.

As those savings materialize, State Treasurer Curt Meier and the Treasurer’s Office would like to see some of that put back into modernizing the investment office. The state’s still operating with an antiquated system that could potentially create mistakes as trades are conducted quickly.

Those systems could cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but would completely modernize the investment portion of the Treasurer’s Office, Meier said.

As the investment team has added more high-level staff, Meier said the ability to offer incentive pay for high-performing investors has drawn significant talent into the state. Meier said the newest member of the team has spent decades in New York as part of high-performing investment firms.