Without experience, you are just a placeholder. And right now, the Nevada State Treasurer’s office is operating like one, not because the people inside aren’t trying, but because the office has stopped behaving like a modern financial operation.
Let me show you what I mean.
What the Treasurer actually does (Most people, even people running for Treasurer, don’t know!)
Every single function of this office touches money. The Treasurer manages Nevada’s own $9.5 billion General Portfolio — the state’s operating cash and investments. Separately, the Treasurer acts as fiduciary for a $2.9 billion Local Government Investment Pool (LGIP) on behalf of Nevada’s cities, counties, and school districts. That’s over $12 billion in total, and every basis point of performance — up or down — is real money in and out of public budgets.
The LGIP is the one most people have never heard of, and it matters more than you’d think. Small Nevada counties don’t have the staff to run their own treasury operations. When Lyon County or White Pine School District has idle operating cash, they deposit it with the state Treasurer, who pools it and invests it. Same-day liquidity. Conservative holdings. Institutional-grade custody at a cost they could never negotiate alone.
Under the LGIP’s investment policy, the pool can hold U.S. Treasuries, federal agency paper, AAA-rated instruments, repurchase agreements, and time certificates of deposit — most with a maximum maturity of 2 years. This is not a place to reach for yield. This is basic blocking-and-tackling finance, where risk is minimized, and trust is paramount. Acting as a fiduciary means acting with transparency and integrity on behalf of others. The counties are counting on you.
So, how is the current office doing?
On raw returns, roughly in line with peer states.
But raw returns are the easy part in a world where the Fed has been paying 5% on overnight money. Any Treasurer could have generated record interest income over the last two years. The test comes now — in a falling-rate environment, where you actually have to manage duration, pick credits, and position across the curve.
And that’s where the black box becomes a problem.
Exhibit A: The investment policy hasn’t been meaningfully updated since July 2022.
Three full years. Through a Fed tightening cycle that took rates from zero to 5%+. Through an inversion of the yield curve. Through the start of a cutting cycle. Through one of the most volatile rate environments in forty years.
A serious financial professional refreshes the framework when the environment changes materially. This one hasn’t been touched. That’s not management. That’s inertia.
Exhibit B: The reporting cadence is four months behind.
The State Board of Finance reviewed the quarter ending June 30, 2025 on October 17, 2025 — nearly four months after the quarter closed. In the private sector, that report would land on a CFO’s desk in under 30 days. Nevada’s public gets it in 120.
That’s not a reporting cadence. That’s a reporting lag.
Exhibit C: Nevadans have no way to tell if they’re getting a fair deal.
This one should bother everyone.
Washington State publishes its LGIP yield every single month on a public webpage. Right next to the yield, they publish the Fed Funds rate. Right next to that, they publish the institutional money-market benchmark. Ten years of data, one page, anyone can read it.
A school district treasurer in Spokane can see, at a glance, whether their LGIP is beating or lagging the market. Every month. For a decade.
Nevada publishes a distributed rate with no benchmark next to it. A local treasurer in Nye County has no way to tell whether their deposits are earning a fair return or leaving money on the table. None.
That is not acceptable for a fiduciary. That is the definition of a black box.
What I’ll do on day one
Publish a public-facing Treasury dashboard with the numbers that actually matter:
LGIP yield vs peer-state benchmarks, updated monthly
General Portfolio performance vs benchmark, updated quarterly
Unclaimed property returned to Nevadans — dollars and number of claims, every month
Days from quarter-end to public report, so everyone can see how current our data actually is
Debt issuance savings versus initial estimates, every time we go to market
Update the investment policy to reflect the actual rate environment we’re in, with quarterly reviews written into the process so it never goes stale again.
Match Washington’s disclosure standard on day one. If they can do it for ten years running, so can we.
Why this matters beyond one office
I spent years trading short-term interest rate futures for a living. I know what modern treasury operations look like. Nevada’s office has good people and defensible raw returns, but the framework around them is a decade behind. That gap is what I’m running to close.
The Treasurer isn’t a policy job. It’s a technical executive job, and it demands a technical executive. If we bring radical, easily understandable transparency to this office, Nevadans can finally see what’s being done with their money — and hold it accountable.
That’s the standard. Anything less is a placeholder.