History of the Iowa Auditor of State

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Territorial Period (1838-1846)

 Before Iowa even became a state, it had an auditor. This position was called the Auditor of the Territory of Iowa, and it existed between 1840 and 1846 until Iowa became the 29^th state. While Iowa was still a territory, the auditor was appointed by the territorial governor for one-year terms. The Auditors of the Territory were Jesse Williams from 1840-1843, William L. Gilbert from 1843-1845, and Robert M. Secrest from 1845-1846.

Constitutional Debate (1844-1846)

For Iowa to become part of the United States, it first needed to have a constitution. The conventions for the Iowa Constitution saw spirited debate, and voters rejected the first draft in 1844. Iowa did not become a state until voters agreed to a constitution in 1846. From the records of the debate that still exist, most discussions about the auditor focused on their salary.  On both sides of the argument, the delegates stressed that the auditor’s salary should be high enough to attract candidates of talent and integrity, but not so high that they earned more than they deserved for their work. Conversations from the 1844 Convention give insight into how important Iowa’s founders thought the role of auditor was: “The committee recommended that the Governor be paid $1000 per annum; Secretary of state, $500; Treasurer, $400; Auditor, $700; Superintendent of Public instruction, $700; Judges of the Supreme and District Courts, $800.”  The committee recommended that the auditor have the second highest paid salary for an elected official, behind only the governor. In the afternoon of this 1844 session, a delegate moved to lower the auditor’s salary by $100. In response, other representatives charged that “The Auditor was the most important office in the State … If he committed an error, it would cost perhaps ten times as much as the amount of his salary to correct it. A responsible man was needed to fill the office.” The auditor’s salary was eventually lowered, but it remained the second highest paid elected official under the 1846 Constitution.

Auditor of Public Accounts (1846-1857)

In 1846, Iowa ratified its first constitution and became a state. Article V of the constitution created the position of the Auditor of Public Accounts, an elected office with two-year terms. Iowa’s State Auditor would serve under this title until Iowans wrote a new constitution in 1857.  The first election for statewide elected officials was on October 26th, 1846. Iowans elected Joseph T. Fales, a Democrat from Des Moines County, as the first auditor.  He was succeeded by William Pattee, who served as the last democratic auditor for 77 years. The third auditor was Andrew J. Stevens, who served from 1854-1855 and was the only Whig to hold the office. Most auditors since have been Republicans. In 1857, Iowa ratified the constitution that it would use through the present day. Article IV, Section 22, changed the title of the Auditor of Public Accounts into its current title, Auditor of State. The fifth auditor, John Pattee, was the first person to serve with the new title. All State Auditors would continue to have two-year terms until 1974.

 

Early Auditors of State (1857-1932)

The 8th Auditor of State was Buren R. Sherman, a Civil War Captain who was injured at the Battle of Shiloh.  He served three terms as auditor before being elected the 12th Governor of Iowa. He was the first occupant of the governor’s office in the current State Capitol. The 9th auditor, William V. Lucas, would later become a U.S. Representative for South Dakota.

During the years 1885-1886, four different people were elected or appointed as auditors and one person filled the position three times. Auditor John L. Brown was suspended in March of 1885 and replaced by Jonathan W. Cattell. He was then reinstated in January 1886 but suspended a second time in April and replaced by Charles Beardsley. On July 14, 1886, he was reinstated again. Finally, James A. Lyons was elected to the office on November 2, 1886.

The 17th Auditor of State was Frank F. Merriam, a former state representative.  After serving as the Iowa Auditor, he would go on to become the Speaker of the California House of Representatives and 28th Governor of California, after beating novelist Upton Sinclair in the 1934 California Governor’s Race. Beryl F. Carroll served three terms as the 18th Auditor of State and two terms as the 20th Governor of Iowa.  He was the first native-born Iowan to become governor.

The worst ethical violations committed by an auditor while in office were from the 24th auditor, James W. Long. He was suspended from office in 1932 following a commission that included Governor Carroll and independent auditors. Following a lengthy investigation that included 22 witnesses and testimony covering 1,035 pages, the commission found $4,720.53 in misappropriated funds. The commission found that he charged the office for personal and political trips, overcharged counties for audits, and compensated family members for typing services.  He committed some of the same violations that the auditor is meant to investigate. He was succeeded by C. Fred Porter, an auditor and former statistician from the office.

Development of Modern Auditing Standards

Prior to the 20th Century, the auditing profession centered on counting goods, estimating their value, and making sure prices were fair. Before the 1929 Stock Market Crash and Great Depression, there were no fixed auditing standards for companies or financial institutions, and many made up their own rules.  Afterwards, Congress and the auditing field created uniform standards that would help prevent fraud. Months before the crash, the American Institute of Accountants (AICPA) created standards called the “Verification of Financial Statements.”  This guide instructed auditors to move away from “detailed verification,” or counting every penny of every purchase, to “testing” and “sampling,” or looking at a smaller number of transactions and seeing if they had strange spending patterns. Unfortunately, their advice came too late as the United States suffered its worst economic crisis a few months later.

Congress later passed laws that tried to stop future financial crashes based on Wall Street fraud. The U.S. Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934 created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates the stock market.  These laws mandate certain companies to issue periodic income statements and balance sheets that are independently audited. Modern accounting in the private sector is based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), or rules that financial institutions and companies should follow. Today, auditors look for anomalies in the ways that organizations spend their money, rather than every thing that they spend their money on. Some examples of suspicious patterns are spikes in growth during the last days of the year, high reported incomes with shrinking bank accounts, one person having total control over spending and reporting, and high turnover in finance departments. Government auditing follows a book of auditing practices called the Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS) or the “Yellow Book.” The federal General Accounting Office or GAO (now Government Accountability Office) released the first edition in 1972. While modern accounting developed because of stock market dishonesty, the first Yellow Book was written after a surge in government spending during the 1960s for the “Great Society” welfare programs and Vietnam War. Congress wanted to verify that all the new money they appropriated was being spent properly. However, the Yellow Book’s standards were only recommendations at first. The Single Audit Act of 1984 turned GAGAS from strongly encouraged advice into legal requirements.  This law stated that state and local governments which receive federal money have one single, comprehensive audit every year that follows GAGAS. As a result, the Auditor of State must release a single comprehensive audit every year that tracks federal funding for Iowa’s state agencies.

The Yellow Book holds government accounting to a much higher ethical standard than the private sector because government auditors have a responsibility to let taxpayers know that their money is being used properly. Private auditing focuses on giving accurate reports to shareholders on the financial health and integrity of companies. Governments need to know this same financial information, but they also have a duty to spend taxpayer dollars as honestly and efficiently as possible. In other words, auditors need to see if governments are wasting money, in addition to simply not stealing it. Even if government agencies spend all their funds legally, they need to prove to voters that they are being honest. Government auditors try to help agencies implement best practices that prevent fraud and increase trust. As a result, they need to pay heavy attention to laws and regulations and usually report their findings to the public. Public trust is the highest priority for government auditors.

20th Century State Auditors (1932-2003)

In 1932, Charles W. Storms was elected as the 26th Auditor of State, the first Democrat to hold the office since 1854. He served three terms until 1938, when he lost to C.B. Akers, a Republican and World War I veteran from Wapello County. Auditor Akers would serve until 1965, making him the longest serving auditor in Iowa history. In 1964, Lorne R. Worthington defeated the 26-year incumbent to become the 28th Auditor of State. He lost to Lloyd Richard Smith in the following 1966 election. Auditor Smith served until his death in 1978, just six weeks after winning his fifth reelection.  During this period the auditor moved from a two-year to a four-year term.

Richard D. Johnson

Governor Robert D. Ray appointed Richard D. Johnson to serve as the 30th State Auditor following Auditor Smith’s death in 1979. Prior to entering this role, he worked for Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co., which would eventually turn into the leading global accounting firm KPMG, and became a certified public accountant (CPA) in 1963.  He worked in the State Auditor’s office as Director of Audits before being appointed as the Director of Finance with the Iowa Highway Commission, later named the Department of Transportation. He served as Director of the Administration Division of the Motor Vehicle Division until his appointment as auditor.

During his tenure, Auditor Johnson pushed for an increase in the number of CPAs in the office. Having well-educated and certified accountants became crucial after the federal Single Audit Act of 1984, which required states to complete a full audit of all state agencies that received federal money. This law greatly increased the workload and importance of the office. Auditor Johnson also created the Performance Investigation Division (PID) to enhance efficiency in government and conduct special investigations into potential fraud. Since then, state auditors have been able to better expose criminal activity in government and protect taxpayer dollars.

Auditor Johnson would serve in this role for 24 years until his retirement in 2003, making him the second longest-serving auditor in Iowa history. He passed in 2022.

 

Contemporary State Auditors (2003-Present)

David A. Vaudt (2003-2013)

David A. Vaudt was elected the 31st Auditor of State in 2002,  and has continued to shape the American accounting field since leaving Iowa. Before serving in elected office, he was a partner at KPMG from 1988 until 2001. In addition to his professional duties, he served on the Iowa Accountancy Examining Board from 1994 through 2002, including serving as its chair from 1995-2002, and on the Board of Directors of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) from 1995 through 2004, becoming its chair in his final year. He also chaired the Examinations Committee, the Public Perceptions Committee, and the Regulatory Structures Committee. As auditor, he pushed to modernize the office to be more in line with private CPA firm standards and participate in professional accounting organizations. During his tenure, the office exposed that the Iowa Film Tax Credit program misappropriated nearly $26 million in taxpayer funds.

He served as auditor from 2003 until 2013, when he resigned to become the next chairman of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), which recommends auditing practices for state and local governments. His term expired in 2020. Since 2025, he has been on the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB), which establishes auditing standards used by the federal government.  Additionally, he is the Audit Committee Chair of Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield and is on the Board of Trustees of Upper Iowa University.

Mary L. Mosiman (2013-2019)

Mary L. Mosiman was appointed by Governor Terry Branstad as Auditor of State in 2013 when Auditor Vaudt resigned and was elected to a full term in 2014.  She became a CPA in 2003 and served as the Story County Auditor from 2001 to 2010, and then as Deputy of Elections for the Secretary of State from 2011 to 2013. She served as State Auditor until 2019 as the first woman to hold the office. As auditor, she oversaw a number of special investigations including the misspending of over $700,000 from the 6th Judicial District’s Correctional Service,  over $500,000 from the City of Garwin,  and $1.8 million in improperly operating bank accounts from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines.  In 2014, just hours before auditors were set to visit the City of Casey, a fire started in the City Clerk’s office that destroyed the city’s records. An audit revealed that the city misspent $300,000, including $54,520.33 in credit card purchases by the city clerk,  who was later sentenced to prison for improper use of city funds and arson.

After leaving office, Auditor Mosiman served as the Iowa Department of Revenue’s (IDR) Deputy Director and Tax Management Division Administrator from 2019 to 2023. She was appointed as Director of the IDR by Governor Kim Reynolds in 2023, where she serves now.

Rob Sand (2019-Present)

Rob Sand was elected as State Auditor in 2018. Prior to his tenure, he was an Assistant Attorney General of Iowa serving as a prosecutor for white-collar financial crimes, including the Film Tax Credit Scandal uncovered by Auditor Vaudt’s administration. Auditor Sand pioneered the Public Innovations and Efficiencies (PIE) program, which awards counties, cities, and school districts that implement tax-saving policies in government.

His tenure has seen a series of high-profile special investigations and audits. In a joint investigation with the FBI, the office found a Metro Waste Authority director of operations to have defrauded the company for over $2 million by billing services to subcontractors he owned. In 2020, the Auditor found that Governor Reynolds misspent $21 million from the CARES Act on state contracts that were unrelated to managing the COVID-19 Pandemic, leading to the state returning the money to its proper fund.

In June 2023, Governor Reynolds signed Senate File 478, a bill that considerably restricted the powers of the State Auditor by preventing access to a range of materials. The bill was opposed by the National State Auditors Association, the American Institute of CPAs, and former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker.

Auditor Sand’s term will expire in January 2027.

 

List of Auditors

 

No.	Name	Took Office	Left Office	Party
1	Joseph T. Fales	1846	1849	Democratic
2	William Pattee	1850	1854	Democratic
3	Andrew J. Stevens	1854	1855	Whig
4	John Pattee	1855	1859	Republican
5	Jonathan W. Cattell	1859	1865	Republican
6	John A. Elliott	1865	1871	Republican
7	John Russell	1871	1875	Republican
8	Buren R. Sherman	1875	1881	Republican
9	William V. Lucas	1881	1883	Republican
10	John L. Brown	1883	1885	Republican
11	Jonathan W. Cattell	1885	1886	Republican
12	John L. Brown	January 23, 1886	April 13, 1886	Republican
13	Charles Beardsley	April 13, 1886	July 14, 1886	Republican
14	John L. Brown	July 14, 1886	1887	Republican
15	James A. Lyons	1887	1893	Republican
16	Cornelius G. McCarthy	1893	1899	Republican
17	Frank F. Merriam	1899	1903	Republican
18	Beryl F. Carroll	1903	1909	Republican
19	John L. Bleakly	1909	1915	Republican
20	Frank S. Shaw	1915	1921	Republican
21	Glenn C. Haynes	January 1, 1921	August 31, 1924	Republican
22	James E. Thomas	September 1, 1924	January 1, 1925	Republican
23	James C. McClune	January 1, 1925	January 1, 1927	Republican
24	James W. Long	January 1, 1927	April 21, 1932	Republican
25	C. Fred Porter	April 21, 1932	January 1, 1933	Republican
26	Charles W. Storms	January 2, 1933	January 3, 1939	Democratic
27	C. B. (Chet) Akers	January 3, 1939	January 2, 1965	Republican
28	Lorne R. Worthington	January 2, 1965	January 1, 1967	Democratic
29	Lloyd R. Smith	January 1, 1967	December 21, 1978	Republican
30	Richard D. Johnson	January 26, 1979	January 3, 2003	Republican
31	David Vaudt	January 3, 2003	May 3, 2013	Republican
32	Mary Mosiman	May 13, 2013	January 2, 2019	Republican
33	Rob Sand	January 2, 2019	Incumbent	Democratic

 

 

 

 

For more detailed graphics and references, please visit History of the Iowa Auditor of State. 

Many thanks to the State Historical Society of Iowa for providing research support.