Mississippians will choose a new money manager this year because two-term state Treasurer Tate Reeves is trying to become lieutenant governor.

The treasurer helps oversee accounts that affect thousands of lives, including the state-sponsored college savings plans and the Public Employees Retirement System. As one of three members of the state Bond Commission, the treasurer helps manage Mississippi’s public debt. The treasurer also helps shape the annual Mississippi budget by serving on a five-member committee that estimates how much revenue the state will collect.

Reeves, 37, is a Republican, as are three of the five candidates trying to succeed him. Lynn Fitch, Lucien Smith and Lee Yancey are competing in the Aug. 2 GOP primary. A runoff, if needed, will be Aug. 23.

Connie Moran is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. She and the Republican primary winner will face the Reform Party’s Shawn O’Hara on Nov. 8.

Fitch, 49, grew up in Holly Springs and lives in Madison. She has been executive director of the state Personnel Board the past two years, and is on leave during the campaign. Fitch spent five years as deputy director of the state Department of Employment Security. She started her legal career on the staff of then-Attorney General Ed Pittman. As an assistant attorney general, Fitch represented several state entities, including the treasurer’s office and the Bond Commission. She was a staff attorney for the state House of Representatives and has worked as a bond attorney in private practice.

“I can begin work on day one,” Fitch said this past week. “I have the experience and the credentials to begin as chief financial officer from the very beginning, without any on-the-job training.”

Smith, 30, grew up in Jackson and still lives in the city. Starting in 2008, he clerked for a year in Jackson for Judge Rhesa Barksdale of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Smith worked as a staff attorney and budget adviser for Republican Gov. Haley Barbour from 2009 until this past December. Among other duties, he helped handle Barbour’s legal challenge of the 2010 federal health care expansion.

“We need a treasurer who understands the state’s finances and is ready to fight to make sure we make the right decisions for the taxpayer and not for the politicians,” Smith said. “As one of Gov. Barbour’s budget advisers, that’s what I have been doing.”

Yancey, 42, grew up in Ripley and lives in Brandon. He was a consultant for several years for the Christian Action Commission of the Mississippi Baptist Convention. Yancey is an investment adviser for Woodridge Capital Portfolio Management and was elected to the state Senate in 2007 in a district that includes parts of Madison and Rankin counties.

Moran, 55, grew up in Ocean Springs and is in her second term as mayor, overseeing her hometown’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina. She has been an economist at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, and for five years in the 1990s she was managing director of Mississippi’s European trade office in Frankfurt, Germany. After returning to Mississippi, Moran served three years as economic development director for coastal Jackson County. She also has run a marketing and economic development consulting firm.

O’Hara has run unsuccessfully for dozens of state and local offices over the past 20 years, from governor to mayor of Hattiesburg.

Emily Pettus covers Mississippi government for the Associated Press.