Vaudt's out

My boss is gone this week, creating some extra duties for your columnist. Normally I have plenty of time for blogging, building matchstick replicas of local landmarks and dictating my memoirs. No so this week. It's just so hard.

So I'm catching up. And it seems as though we're now short one state auditor.

Republican State Auditor David Vaudt is resigning to take over the chairmanship of the Governmental Standards Accounting Board. Of course, it's well known that the GSAB's annual symposiums are killer, but what else do we know?

Known as GASB, the board is the source of generally accepted accounting principles used by local and state governments. Vaudt will be its fourth chairman, and the Financial Accounting Foundation appointed him to a seven-year term.

...

He said GASB's work includes making rules on issues such as how governments should record pension liability.

 A statement issued by Branstad's office said the governor would begin a search for Vaudt's replacement immediately.

This sort of thing doesn't happen every day. In fact, I can't remember the last time it happened. Maybe someone out there knows.

Hey, has anyone seen my copy of Iowa Code Chapter 69.8, the one on filling vacancies left by resigning state officers? Here it is, right next to my handy guide on what to do when a state Senate candidate joins a shadow government:

69.8 VACANCIES -- HOW FILLED.

Vacancies shall be filled by the officer or board named, and in the manner, and under the conditions, following:

2. State offices. In all state offices, judges of courts of record, officers, trustees, inspectors, and members of all boards or commissions, and all persons filling any position of trust or profit in the state, by the governor, except when some other method is specially provided. An appointment by the governor to fill a vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor shall be for the balance of the unexpired term. An appointment made under this subsection to a state office subject to section 69.13 shall be for the period until the vacancy is filled by election pursuant to law.

So Gov. Terry Branstad will appoint a new auditor. Voters get their say in November 2014, when the office is on the ballot.

I'm sorry to see Vaudt go. I think he's been a straight shooter, for the most part, and is good at his job. And he did that job without twisting his position into a spin factory for feeding any higher political ambitions. The auditor's office has been aggressive in digging into governmental entities and protecting taxpayer dollars. That work speaks for itself.

I was disappointed when he campaigned around the state with Branstad in 2010 on their "Truth in Budgeting Tour," which featured hefty servings of the sort of politics-fueled budgetary whoppers that Vaudt had built a reputation for avoiding. So that autumn, we had Branstad's bogus billion dollar shortfall, Chet Culver's everything's dandy defense and not much truth. Vaudt should have been a truth-teller. But I understand politics.

I don't know who Branstad will pick. But I wonder if the Linn County Board of Supervisors might campaign to have a local auditor promoted to Des Moines. Kidding.