CARSON CITY -- Las Vegas businessman Mark DeStefano said it is his financial experience and business success that sets him apart from his opponent in the race for state treasurer.
The Republican points to his company, MQ Holdings Inc., established in 1999, and his charitable work educating young people about money matters, as examples of why he is the best choice to handle the state's financial investments.
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But Reno attorney Kate Marshall, the Democratic candidate, points to the same experiences DeStefano touts as his qualifications and draws a different conclusion about his suitability for the job.
A personal bankruptcy in 1988 and an employment history that raises some questions about the depth of his financial experience suggest that DeStefano is not the right person to serve as treasurer, Marshall said.
Marshall, who worked for the U.S. Justice Department and created the antitrust office for the Nevada attorney general's office, also points to her own employment record as a significant qualification for the job of treasurer.
DeStefano disagrees, saying Marshall does not have the experience to be treasurer.
"The bottom line in this race is her rhetoric and negative attacks on me versus my qualifications," he said.
But Marshall said she has a plan for the office and that DeStefano has none.
"The voters want to vote for someone who has a clean financial record and who has shown good judgment throughout life," she said. "I think it comes down to a question of judgment and leadership. My opponent fails on both counts."
DeStefano criticizes Marshall for her plan, saying it shows a lack of knowledge about the operations of the treasurer's office. Her proposal to use electronic transfers of funds is already being done as a pilot project and the process to expand it more fully is already under way, he said.
Her plan to eliminate the cost of armored vehicle transport through the use of electronic transfers is not workable because many low-income people still use cash for transactions such as motor vehicle registrations, DeStefano said.
Marshall also said in her plan she wants to more actively manage the unclaimed property portfolio, which cannot be done because it is folded into the state general fund, he said.
"Her plan is a sham," DeStefano said. "It's totally misleading and shows she doesn't understand the office."
But Marshall labeled DeStefano's criticisms as ridiculous. The electronic transfer process needs to be implemented in a much broader fashion, and the treasurer's office would be involved in that, she said. And not all armored car transport could be eliminated because people do pay with cash, Marshall acknowledged. There was never any intention to entirely do away with armored transport, she said.
DeStefano, who worked for a time as a stockbroker and as an air traffic controller before coming to Nevada in 1996, has also criticized Marshall for taking campaign contributions from those who do business with the treasurer's office.
Marshall said she would not accept contributions from companies and individuals who purchase and sell municipal securities, which is prohibited for this group of professionals anyway.
But contributions from people such as prominent Reno Republican John Sande and Carson City attorney Robert Crowell, who have had other types of business dealings with the treasurer's office, have been accepted as a show of the breadth and depth of the support for her campaign, she said.
DeStefano, on the other hand, has accepted contributions from a Las Vegas businessman who admitted to bribing a Nevada elected official and from companies associated with a man who has had numerous entanglements with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Marshall said.
Accepting these contributions "shows a serious lack of judgment on his part," she said.
DeStefano has defended the contributions as legal and appropriate.
DeStefano is also adamant about making sure the Millennium Scholarship, which is administered by the treasurer's office, is given only to legal U.S. residents. A social security number requirement would ensure the money, available to Nevada high school graduates with a high enough grade point average, would go only to legal residents, he said.
Marshall has not made her position clear on the issue, DeStefano said.
Marshall said her job as treasurer would be to demonstrate to policymakers how a variety of changes to the program would affect its future financial health. This includes an option requiring a social security number and other possible refinements, such as limiting the scholarship to middle- and lower-income students, she said.
"My opponent has no plan on what to do with the Millennium Scholarship to make sure it will remain available to those tens of thousands of students in Nevada," Marshall said. "The treasurer does not have a vote. But it would be the job of the treasurer to provide options and the financial ramifications of those options."
The governor, Legislature and Board of Regents will make the policy decisions, and Marshall said as treasurer she would implement those decisions.
But DeStefano said Marshall's idea to limit who gets the scholarship by using a financial means test would have the effect of creating an entitlement program.
"She's a liberal who wants to start an entitlement program to give away the state's dollars," he said. "I want to protect our tax dollars."
DeStefano said he has always been forthcoming about his past, including the personal bankruptcy filed 18 years ago that he said was due to medical bills from his daughter's illness.
DeStefano said he had a decade's worth of difficulty after the collapse of the stock market in 1987.
But the Marshall campaign has questioned the reasons for the bankruptcy.
Research by the Marshall campaign shows that DeStefano had about $48,000 in personal credit card bills and loans unrelated to his daughter's medical bills when he filed for bankruptcy.
DeStefano admits there were other debts, but that his daughter's illness was the final straw.
"It was my decision," he said. "The family had to do something to change its circumstances."
