Public Administrator Race: Former Coroner Michael Murphy Faces Deputy Attorney General Stephanie Itkin-Goodman

Few voters know the office exists until a family needs it. The Clark County public administrator secures the assets of Southern Nevadans who die with no will and no one designated to administer the estate. On Tuesday's ballot, Democrat Stephanie Itkin-Goodman and Republican Michael Murphy are competing to succeed Rita Reid, who is not seeking re-election. Itkin-Goodman won her primary with 65 percent of the vote and Murphy won his with 66 percent, according to the Nevada Current's voter guide.

Murphy's case is experience inside the work itself. He moved to Southern Nevada in 1980, worked for the Boulder City Police Department and later served as Mesquite's chief of police, then ran the Clark County coroner's office for 14 years and was called back in 2020 when the coroner took early retirement during COVID. He also spent 11 months in the public administrator's office in 2022, and he says that if he had not been coroner, he would not know how to run this office. His plans include body cameras for investigators and barcoding estate inventory in the field. Reid has endorsed him.

Itkin-Goodman, an attorney and Nevada deputy attorney general who moved from New York about five years ago, previously worked just under two years in a New York City district attorney's office and in private practice, and now advises state regulatory boards. She says the office needs fundamental reform rather than a continuation of past practices, and she would support changing the law so county commissions in large counties could appoint the administrator instead of electing one. She reported raising $41,000 as of Oct. 15, with roughly $13,000 on hand. The race lands two weeks after a county audit found the office carrying 1,892 open cases, an average of 1,118 days each, with $623,000 in fees not properly transferred to the county — findings both candidates will inherit in January.