Rob Sand meets with constituents in Red Oak

On July 10, Iowa’s State Auditor Rob Sand visited Legion Park in Red Oak as one stop in his visit to all 99 of the state’s counties. He spoke directly with the public about programs, reports and new initiatives he has overseen.
Sand’s first topic of discussion was the PIE Program, which he said helps to ensure government efficiency.
“We’ve got about ten pages of practices that cities, counties and school districts can use to save money,” he said. “We send it out every year, hoping they fill it out and send it back to us, tell us what they’re doing and what they’re not.”
Sand then stated that each year, he travels around Iowa to visit and provide rewards to the cities, counties and school districts that perform the best. He also said he brings actual pie, which many audience members agreed is one major positive of the program.
“We also collect ideas from around the state for how to save money,” Sand said. “We call those PIE recipes. It has been a really successful program. It can help unlock hundreds of millions of savings for taxpayers around the state just by making government more efficient.”
Following his discussion of the PIE Program, Sand stated that hundreds of standard financial audit reports were issued this year. Along with this, he said a couple dozen special investigations were carried out, which identified millions of dollars that had been misspent.
Sand continued by bringing up a report that was “a little bit outside of the ordinary.” This report was in regard to property taxes across Iowa.
“Most of us think of property tax as being a thing where the people who are well off pay a little bit more,” he said. “If you actually compare property tax districts across the state of Iowa, it is the opposite.”
Sand came to this conclusion by comparing the levy rate across all Iowa districts to the income within those districts. After the numbers were gathered, he and his team created a graph, which showed that the levy rate decreases as the income district becomes wealthier.
“So across the state of Iowa, wealthier towns, wealthier neighborhoods are actually paying a lower property tax levy rate than they are in rural areas and poorer areas,” he said.
Sand mentioned that this was the first time this analysis had been conducted, and he is hoping that the legislature will use this information to aid with decision-making.
Next, Sand said another report that was out-of-the-ordinary was associated with trying to ensure that individuals without a four-year college degree have a pathway to public service. He said that two years ago, his office began hiring individuals with two-year degrees in accounting, which currently makes up 10% of hires.
“My attitude on it is there’s a lot of people who make the decision to get the two-year degree because they’re value-oriented and they see, ‘OK, I can spend half the time and spend less than half the money and get the same degree to get the same pay. Why wouldn’t I do that?’” he said.
Sand said he would like to have more individuals with this mindset as the taxpayers’ watchdog.
“I mean, we’re supposed to be trying to make sure that taxpayers get the best thing for the buck, and so having people around that think that way would make some sense,” he said.
To take this initiative further, Sand said he and his team reviewed the descriptions of all state jobs. From this research, they discovered that 28 of these jobs state a four-year degree is either required or preferred. This has resulted in many people no longer considering these jobs.
“We’re losing out on really well-qualified applicants for people to do the work that taxpayers need to get done,” he said. “So we put those recommendations out there. Hopefully, the administration will take us up on that and take a couple further steps to eliminate those degree requirements for those jobs.”
Later on in the visit, Sand discussed a new effort being made in regard to the voucher program.
“We also just created an effort that’s going to cost us a billion dollars out of our funding from public schools over the next three years with our vouchers program, with no real requirement for how they spend the money,” he said.
Sand then emphasized the importance of accountability in regard to how tax dollars are spent.
“So the lack of accountability for how tax dollars are getting spent really, I would say, is getting continually reinforced by the legislature and the governor in what they’re passing,” he said. “Same with the law that says the state auditor no longer can have access to documents showing how taxpayer money is getting spent.”
Following these statements, one audience member asked if there was any recourse in suing the state regarding the unaccountability of public funding going to private schools. Sand said that the way the voucher program is structured leads to the benefit of urban areas. However, this is at the expense of smaller, rural areas.
“So all the money that gets paid in taxes from places in rural areas and small towns is now getting sucked out of public schools and going to private schools in urban areas,” he said.
One final topic Sand discussed was a bill he faced this year, which could have restricted the auditor’s office. This bill did not pass, but Sand explained to the audience what could have happened if it did.
“This one would have allowed all of us to vote for who the state auditor is, but if state agencies didn’t like who we picked, they could just hire someone else instead,” he said.
According to Sand, this was the year’s first bill the Senate voted on. It passed in the Senate, but never made it to the House.
“The fact that it came up and even passed the Senate should be a pretty clear indicator, all of us, that the attacks on government transparency in Iowa are not finished,” he said. “And that we need to continue to be watchful, trying to make sure the folks who run state government aren’t just trying to serve themselves, that they’re trying to serve everybody.”
To learn more about Sand, the above topics and the work completed in the state auditor’s office, more information can be found at auditor.iowa.gov.