He has been all over the country, but Ronn Young is back in Iowa, and he is on a mission.

“I saw that the government’s expenses were out of control,” Young said, describing his return to the state four years ago after working almost 20 years in Chicago and San Francisco.

Young, the state chairman of the Iowa Reform Party, is running for state auditor against incumbent Republican Richard Johnson. There is no Democratic candidate in the race.

“It’s time to get down and look at the real reasons why we’re not getting our money’s worth,” he said. “The auditor needs to have the state run like a business.”

As a third-party candidate, Young faces a tough battle against Johnson, the Auditor of State since 1979. But Young is unfazed, and true to his party’s name, he has reform on his mind.

“I’m going to call in the department heads of the 50-plus departments and tell them that I want their budget cut 5 percent for the next four years,” he said.

Despite this drastic change, Young said there will be no drop-off in the benefits these departments provide to taxpayers.

“I’m going to do that by insisting that each department increase their efficiency to keep the state getting the services at the same price,” he said. “Everybody talks about cutting taxes. Well, how about cutting expenses and taxes?”

In his interview with the Daily, Young refrained from using a favored technique of many underdog candidates — heavy criticism of his opponent.

“They’ve done a reasonable job, but I think they could be a better watchdog of state spending,” he said of Johnson and his staff.

Young mentioned one specific area where he sees room for improvement — the Iowa Communications Network.

“The state legislators can’t even get a fix on what’s going on in there,” he said of the ICN, a spider web of fiber-optic cables and high-tech classrooms that was established in 1994.

Young said the ICN’s governing body, of which Johnson is a nonvoting member, has not been responsible to taxpayers.

“It doesn’t seem to be really accountable,” he said. “They haven’t provided the numbers that they promised.”

As a Reform Party member, Young is inevitably associated with party founder Ross Perot, but he does not shy away from those comparisons.

“He shoots from the hip, and he shoots straight,” Young said of the Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate. “If the politicians in this country could live up to his moral examples, we wouldn’t be in the spot we are now.”

See tomorrow’s Daily for a profile of Young’s opponent, Richard Johnson.

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Satellite voting today at Memorial Union

Have you made your choice for State Auditor — or any other elected office? If you have, head to the Memorial Union Wednesday and vote early.

The County Auditor’s Office will hold “satellite voting” in the Pine Room from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. for all voters registered in Story County.

Judy Emmons, county auditor, said anyone not registered in Story County can vote Wednesday if registration is changed at the voting station.

Emmons said the process — with or without registration — should take less than 10 minutes.