Idaho state controller’s race: Former state evaluator challenges GOP incumbent in general election

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — A longtime state performance evaluator is running against Idaho’s longest currently serving statewide elected official in the 2026 general election for Idaho state controller.

Democratic candidate Rakesh Mohan is challenging incumbent Republican State Controller Brandon Woolf, who has served as state controller since being appointed in 2012. 

The state controller is a constitutional officer that serves as Idaho’s chief fiscal officer and serves on the Idaho State Board of Land Commissioners, which is commonly referred to as the Land Board. The position is for a four-year term and comes with an annual salary of $128,690.

Meet Democratic challenger Rakesh Mohan

Mohan worked as a government auditor and evaluator for 36 years, working for state legislatures in Idaho, Washington, Louisiana and Kansas. He spent the last 21 years of his evaluation career as director of the nonpartisan Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations until he retired in June 2024. After that, Mohan served as a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy at Boise State University. 

Mohan is not an accountant or IT professional, but he said his 30-plus years of experience evaluating and auditing government policy and programs has prepared him to serve as controller. He said he is running because he believes in accountability and transparency and did not want to see Woolf run unopposed, like Woolf did in the 2014 and 2018 general elections. 

“Since I decided to run and I started talking to people, the very first questions I get asked are, ‘Do we have a controller? Who is the controller? What does the controller do?’” Mohan said. “So my very first thought was, boy, the controller and the state talk about transparency in government. But if people don’t even know we exist, then what kind of transparency do we have here?”

Mohan said he views the controller’s job as looking over taxpayer dollars that go to the state. The job also includes overseeing payroll for all state employees and making sure the right amount of money goes to the right place at the right time. Mohan said the office is responsible for statewide accounting and the state’s large data systems.

“It may sound boring to most people, but it is an extremely important job,” Mohan said. “And the controller is also responsible for paying all the bills. That includes multi-million dollar contracts.”

Mohan has two adult children and three grandchildren. He was married to his wife, Carolyn, for 44 years until she died in 2024.

Meet incumbent Republican State Controller Brandon Woolf

Woolf first started at the Idaho State Controller’s Office as an intern in 1997 after graduating from Utah State University. 

He worked his way up to become payroll division administrator and, eventually, chief of staff for former Idaho State Controller Donna Jones. 

After Jones was seriously injured in a car accident in 2012, former Gov. Butch Otter appointed Woolf to finish Jones’ term while she focused on her recovery. Woolf ran for the position himself and won in 2014. He is finishing his third term of his own as state controller. 

Woolf said he thinks of the controller’s office as the “checkbook side” of the state government. The office is responsible for state payments, the largest of which is payroll to more than 37,000 state and university employees. 

Beginning with his first day as state controller in 2012, Woolf said he focused on increasing transparency around state government, contracting and payroll. In 2013, the state launched the Transparent Idaho website, which Woolf says makes all state financial and organizational data accessible to the public. 

“It was always my vision that it’s not my money, it’s not the state’s money,” Woolf said. “We’ve been entrusted with those sacred tax dollars. And so where there is a lot of money that is being spent and being appropriated, it’s only right and correct that the citizens have a right to see where that money is spent. And so it’s truly opening the books and shining a light.”

Woolf is about to celebrate his 32nd wedding anniversary to his childhood sweetheart, Janalee. Together, Woolf and Janalee have three adult children and three grandchildren. 

Idaho state controller candidates disagree over rollout of Luma statewide business system

One of the largest and most public projects under Woolf and the Idaho State Controller’s Office in recent years has been the 2023 launch of Luma, the massive statewide business system that is designed to centralize all of the state’s business, budget, payroll, human resources, procurement and financial management systems in one spot. State officials refer to Luma as a cloud-based enterprise resource planning system that more than 80 state agencies are tied into. 

Luma replaced a pair of 1980s-era business systems that had exceeded their lifecycle and were vulnerable to security threats and disruptions. Woolf said that many of the people who knew how to operate the old systems have retired, and the state was no longer able to update or receive any technical support for the old systems.

However, the rollout of Luma was dogged by data entry and reporting errors, some late or inaccurate state payments, uneven employee training and delays, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. Even last year, some state budget analysts told state legislators there have been delays in required financial reports and state adults that were attributed to Luma. 

Citing an Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations report on Luma released after he retired, Mohan said he attributes many of Luma’s challenges to leadership challenges in the Idaho State Controller’s Office. 

Mohan alleged there has not been state accountability with Luma because Woolf is running for a new term and because one of the former top deputies in the controller’s office who worked with Luma now works with Infor, one of the companies that got the state contract for Luma.

“If I was the controller (when Luma rolled out), I would have resigned in disgrace,” Mohan said. “Maybe that’s a different way to perceive these things. His perception might be different than mine, but I would not have stayed in that position. And so that’s one accountability thing.”

Woolf said Luma works and is a safer, more modern system that does not have the same security vulnerabilities the legacy systems had.

“This was a massive, generational change,” Woolf said. 

“There were probably 50 or 60 different accounting systems in all these state agencies that are now merged into one and so, again, that was a massive lift,” Woolf said. “We did it within budget, and we felt that our procurement process was the right process and now we are being able to share lessons learned. Was it easy? No. Did we have our hiccups? Yeah, I won’t shy away from that. … Luma is working well, and it is doing what it is intended to do.”

Woolf said he would make the move to Luma again if he had to make the decision over again.