Iowa State Auditor Rob Sands had voiced concerns about expenditures surrounding the state’s COVID relief funds, and it seems now that his concerns were justified. An audit of state expenditures show that nearly $450,000 of COVID relief funds were used to pay salaries of staff in the governor’s office. Sands had twice contacted the governor’s office requesting documentation proving the need for the spending but was rebuffed both times.
Sand persisted in his quest for documentation:
Sand said he requested information from the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and was initially provided a spreadsheet listing the governor’s employees with a section labeled FY 2020 Shortfall and the amount of $448,448.86. A subsequent version was sent to him in which the section title was amended to Covid-19 Personnel Costs with the same amount of money.
“That spreadsheet that shows they changed the headers to basically instead of say shortfall to say Covid-19 is a pretty big deal,” he told The Associated Press, suggesting that the attempt by Reynolds’ administration to conceal the use of the federal money was to fill a salary gap.
Reynolds’ response is that CARES money can be spent on salaries; however, the expenditure has to be tied to COVID response, and despite a spokesman for Reynolds claiming that her staff “spent a vast majority of their time responding to the pandemic. In fact, many members of Gov. Reynolds' staff worked seven days a week out of the State Emergency Operation Center to provide direct support to Iowans," Reynolds’ office has provided no such documentation to date (despite Sands’ repeated warnings it would be needed) to justify the expenditures as COVID related, and are now trying to come up with documentation “after the fact.”
Sand said his office looked further into the spending because the Office of Inspector General requested an inquiry. He said the federal agency has reviewed his office’s findings and agreed with them. It could be a problem that Reynolds’ office is trying to come up with documentation after telling the auditor’s office twice that they had no such documentation, Sand said.
“If you’re coming up with documentation after the fact after you’ve said twice you don’t have it, that should be concerning too,” he said.
Given that Gov. Reynolds’ mantra has repeatedly been “I trust Iowans to do the right thing” with regard to masks and vaccinations, one wonders exactly what required so much time and energy from her staff.
This is not the first time Reynolds has run afoul of misspending federal COVID relief funds. Last December, the Reynolds administration had to return $21 million in COVID relief funds that the state had used to upgrade outdated IT systems. Reynolds, of course, blames US Treasury officials, saying they had initially approved the spending.
In other news, our illustrious governor has joined the state to 3 different lawsuits challenging the Biden administration over the vaccine mandate. Because despite all evidence to the contrary, Gov. “Dumb as a pile of bricks” Reynolds still thinks Iowans will “do the right thing.”
Edit: Forgot to provide a link to my source of the quoted material, here it is —
Iowa governor improperly used $450,000 in Covid funds for salaries, audit finds