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But she was the one hired in June. In what smacks of nepotism, Colyandro is also the wife of John Colyandro, Rylander's chief of staff.

A formal posting for the job says applicants are required to have a college degree. Helena Colyandro graduated from the University of Texas in December 1997 with a double major in Latin American studies and history. The job qualifications also say applicants are required to have a minimum five years of marketing and advertising experience. Sanders, speaking on behalf of Rylander and the Colyandros, could not demonstrate from looking at Helena Colyandro's résumé that she met this requirement, even though agency personnel records indicate she had.

"Exceptions are made for exceptional people," Sanders says. "It is foolish to look at job requirements and job postings and the incredible, ridiculous bureaucracy that surrounds who can get a job in state government. We post jobs as best we can, but it shouldn't penalize the best people from getting the job. We're not worried around here about minimum requirements but rather maximum capability."

According to the résumé Helena Colyandro submitted to the comptroller, she worked off and on from 1990 to 1997 on temporary projects for an Austin-based marketing company and the U.S. embassy in Mexico City. Her focus in those jobs was to increase the number of U.S. and Mexican companies doing business across the border.

Her most recent job was doing contract work for an Austin marketing firm, where she analyzed focus group research for companies trying to market their products to Latinos. She did that for about a year. Her résumé lists her fee at $100 an hour. Before that, she had a five-month stint for an Austin public relations firm specializing in Hispanic markets -- the only permanent job she ever held before working for the comptroller. At the public relations firm, she earned less than $1,700 a month.

As marketing director of the Texas Tomorrow Fund, her starting salary was $4,579 a month, her having secured from the outset the high end of an annual pay scale that ranged from $41,000 to $55,000.

The job posting for marketing director says that bilingual and multicultural marketing experience is preferred, although its lengthy descriptions of the job say nothing about an emphasis toward marketing the fund to Hispanics. Yet Sanders says Rylander is keenly interested in increasing the number of Hispanics who sign up with the fund, and Helena Colyandro's knowledge of Hispanic markets along with her fluency in Spanish gave her an advantage over other applicants.

But what helped her the most, he says, is that Rylander already knew her and recruited her for the job. The fact that she was the wife of the chief of staff was not an issue, he says.

"The comptroller wants to hire the best and brightest that she can attract," Sanders says. "There is no marriage penalty here."

There is, however, an agency nepotism policy that says an employee cannot be in a direct line of supervision over his or her spouse. Although John Colyandro is chief of staff, Sanders says Helena Colyandro answers to fund manager Aaron Demerson, who works at the pleasure of the fund's investment board, which is chaired by Rylander. As a result, Sanders says, the hiring of Helena Colyandro does not violate the agency's nepotism policy. But the lines of duty are fuzzy as Demerson is considered an employee of the comptroller, who oversees the program.

Another person involved in the hiring of Helena Colyandro, however, definitely calls John Colyandro boss. That would be human resources manager Morris Winn. In a June 10 memo, Demerson recommended to Winn that Helena Colyandro be hired "based on her strong background related to marketing various programs, her level of involvement with multicultural organizations and [her] bilingual ability."

Sanders maintains that no one at the comptroller's office felt pressured to hire Helena Colyandro even though she was the wife of the chief of staff and someone Rylander specifically wanted for the job. Sanders dismisses any notion that Rylander's recruitment of Helena Colyandro was done as a favor to her husband. In fact, Sanders says, John Colyandro advised his wife not to take the job.

"Whether that sounds self-serving or like bullshit, it's not," Sanders says.

"There has not been a single discussion with anybody about her political plans or her political future," he says. "She's solely concentrating on doing a good job at this agency."

During her speech to the Heritage Foundation, however, it seemed as if Rylander were auditioning for another political race. Or maybe she just never stops campaigning. She touted herself as the "state traffic cop" looking for ways to cut government waste.

"My vision for the 21st century is paychecks and jobs for Texans, limited government and unlimited opportunity," she said. "My philosophy is quite simple. What we all need from government is less, not more. Less mandates, less regulation, less taxation, less government spending. Every single decision I make is based on that philosophy."

Those words aren't much different from those she offered in her run for comptroller. But in her D.C. speech, Rylander detoured to set off alarms that she may be campaigning for something new yet again. She told the Heritage Foundation that her national defense philosophy could be summed up in the words of gangster Al Capone, who once said, "You can get more done with kind words and a gun than you can with kind words."