In a report released Tuesday, Iowa’s State Auditor Rob Sand once again called for Gov. Kim Reynolds to return nearly $450,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds. The funds were used to pay for 21 governor’s office staff members for three months in 2020. Sand’s request comes for the third time after he recommended the funds were improperly used and should be returned in both October 2020 and December 2021, the Associated Press reported.
According to Sand, not only did the Republican governor misspend the federal funds, she tried to conceal it by passing it through the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. While the governor’s office tries to justify its use of the emergency funds in a document provided in December, Sand’s recommendation is that the amount of $448,448 remained the same.
Sand noted that the governor’s staff salaries had already been considered in creating her budget prior to the pandemic, thus making them ineligible for payment out of the federal pandemic relief money. Reynolds allegedly paid salaries for 21 staff members out of the federal funds between March 15, 2020 and June 30, 2020, including her spokesman, a lawyer, and her chief of staff.
Additionally, the documentation the governor’s office provided to justify the expenses also missed the deadline established by the U.S. Department of Treasury, Sand said according to the AP. Treasury officials told Reynolds’ administration last November that failure to provide documentation upon request of the auditor can result in noncompliance, which can require repayment of improperly used federal funding.
In response to the allegations of misuse of funds, a spokesman for Reynolds, Alex Murph, said Reynolds’ staff members spent most of their time responding to the pandemic during the months in question. He added that many staff members worked seven days a week out of the State Emergency Operation Center to provide direct support to Iowans.
But while Reynolds claims she believed the federal coronavirus relief law allowed salaries to be paid for workers whose job requirements were significantly changed due to the pandemic, Sand said during his review of the state’s payroll system it was unclear why Reynolds took the money to pay the salaries.
This isn’t the first time Reynolds has been asked to return relief funds. In December 2020, Reynolds had to return $21 million in COVID-19 relief money after using it to upgrade an outdated state information technology system. According to the Associated Press, U.S. Treasury officials determined the payments were not allowed expenditures under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Seems like Reynolds either is purposely ignoring what the regulations for relief funds are, or she’s just too ignorant to bother reading them.
Outside of her misuse of COVID-19 funds, Reynolds also made headlines this week for delivering the Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address. Reynolds not only criticized the way the pandemic was handled by Democrats but claimed the government has been recklessly spending—ironic accusations by someone who not only has been nationally criticized for her COVID-19 response but is under fire herself for misuse of funds.
"Instead of moving America forward, it feels like President Biden and his party have sent us back in time," Reynolds said.
She also accused Biden of making the country look weaker in the eyes of the international community.
"Weakness on the world stage has a cost, and the president's approach to foreign policy has consistently been too little too late," Reynolds said.
"We can't project strength abroad if we're weak at home," she said, claiming that Biden’s administration "have spent the last year either ignoring the issues facing Americans or making them worse."
The best part of her speech was definitely her claim that Republicans had handled the COVID-19 pandemic best. Not sure what stats she’s been looking at, but GOP states have higher rates of not only infection but death as a result of COVID-19.
"Republican governors faced the same Covid-19 virus head on, but we honored your freedoms and saw right away that lockdowns and school closures, they came with their own significant costs; that mandates weren't the answer," she said. "What happened and is still happening to our children over the last two years is unconscionable: learning loss, isolation, anxiety, depression. In so many states, our kids have been left behind and many will never catch up," she added.
Reynolds bragged about the fact that “Iowa was the first state in the nation to require that schools open their doors.” She also claimed that “Republicans believe that parents matter” and thus do not enforce masks in schools.
While Democrats hoped the State of the Union address would give Biden a boost in support, Republicans used the speech as an opportunity to criticize the weaknesses they found in the president's agenda and his work thus far.