To Mary Mosiman, the Republican incumbent state auditor, the state auditor race is primarily about the candidates’ qualifications.

As the only certified public accountant (CPA) running for the position, she said her title and experience means that she is the only one who would be able to perform all of the office’s duties.

What qualifies Mosiman

“I’m an auditor, I’m a CPA, this is how I can serve,” Mosiman said. “I have noticed during the campaign season that my opponent, a lot of his support comes from out of state. He’s got United States senators from California, from Washington, that have gotten involved in this race. Politico just did a nice article on him, he’s being viewed as a likely candidate for U.S. Senate.”

Because Rob Sand is not a CPA, Mosiman said, he would be unable to sign off on audits completed within the department and would thus have to hire private firms to audit governmental bodies. She said that it was necessary for the state auditor to be a CPA for the office to be officially recognized as a CPA firm, which was necessary for them to legally conduct audits.

Sand disputes this idea, as do some republican party officials and Iowa State professors. Kelly Shaw, a professor in Iowa State’s political science department, said he thought it was strange the office was even recognized as a CPA firm, as the state requires 50 percent of the firm’s ownership to be CPAs for the firm to be certified.

“It’s pretty clear in my mind, from a political or legal point of view, that [the] position, since it’s an elected position, is an elected position to the state, and as a result the auditor’s office is a part of the state of Iowa as opposed to a corporation in that regard,” Shaw said. “It’s typically a best practice to use a CPA and a CPA-owned firm to do audits in the public sector, but… Mr. Sand is not the only person that would be in that office, and that’s not to say that the people who would actually be doing the auditing wouldn’t be CPAs.”

In response to Sand’s statement that the office puts too much focus on hiring CPAs and doesn’t have enough officials with law enforcement background, Mosiman said the policy of hiring primarily CPAs and other accountants did not impede their ability to investigate fraud and was critical to their ability to audit.

What Mosiman does

“We are very aggressive, we have a good team,” Mosiman said. “I know he talks about how we have 30-some CPAs, that’s quite true. We used to have 70-some CPAs. If we’re going to issue 250-270 audit reports each year, we need to have at least 30 CPAs to conduct that work efficiently and effectively.”

Policy Positions

Mosiman said she believed it was not her place to make any statement on policy, because the state auditor does not enact or create policy and instead follows the guidelines created by the governor and the legislature.

“I am not a policymaker,” Mosiman said. “I know my opponent has weighed in on various policy decisions that our lawmakers make, or our governor makes, and an auditor needs to follow the accounting principles. One of those accounting principles is independence, so when an auditor weighs in as a supporter or an opposer of various policy issues, that can have an impact on the financial information that is to be relied upon.”