Honoring notable Iowan Richard Johnson

I had the opportunity to reflect on the impact a single person can make on our state as I attended the funeral of a notable Iowan, Richard Johnson, who served 25 years as State Auditor. Dick loved God, his family and Iowa. I witnessed all three of those as we served together as elected officials.

Richard Johnson may not be a name everyone in Iowa knows, but there are reasons why they should. For many people, how the financial books are kept is not the most interesting subject matter to discuss, but for Dick, it was his passion in the 1990s to advocate for a change to the way the State of Iowa kept the books. In those days, Iowa wasn’t required to adhere to a standard set of rules on how to book revenue and expenses.

Dick helped bring change to this process and pushed hard for Iowa to adopt GAAP accounting standards. I know many of you reading this will ask, why does that matter? I would say because Dick cared enough about this state to travel it to make sure people understood the importance of doing things the right way. He was a man of integrity and he wanted to ensure his state was known as a state of integrity. Because of him, Iowans can rest assured that the numbers they see in the state’s accounting books reflect the true picture of Iowa’s finances.

State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald

Des Moines