DES MOINES, IOWA (April 8, 2026) — Transparency isn’t just something I apply to my work as the State Auditor — it’s part of my core.
My faith instructs me to live in light; to be honest, to look for the good, to be charitable, to lead with integrity. I teach my children that when they make a mistake — because we all do — own it. Trying to cover it up creates more trouble.
As State Auditor, I’ve stressed transparency for Iowa tax-payers from day one. I called out the Reynolds administration for refusing to release documents related to Iowa’s school-voucher program. I held their feet to the fire when we caught them hiding public records requested by a state legislator. As if threatened by my pursuit of transparency, the Governor signed Senate File 478, a bill that hides corruption and makes it harder for the Auditor’s Office to show you where your tax dollars are going.
But that hasn’t deterred me. One of the most recent examples of my commitment to transparency is the Auditor’s Office arguing before the Iowa Supreme Court for the release of recordings of closed-session meetings held by Davenport city leaders in 2023. I’ve fought this battle for more than two years because Davenport tax-payers deserve to know why the city paid nearly $2 million to three former employees.
We know city leaders wrote some of those checks about two months before the city council approved the payments. What is not clear is how and why that happened.
Davenport’s internal controls — the safeguards that are supposed to be in place to prevent waste and fraud — should have prevented checks from going out before the Council approved payments.
Attorneys for the city have argued the recordings should remain sealed, claiming they are protected by the attorney-client privilege, which requires attorneys to keep information provided by their clients and their legal strategies confidential. As a prosecutor, I know that protection is closely guarded, but this should be an exception. Keeping the recordings confidential could also send a message to elected officials that calling an attorney into the room will provide cover when they want to keep financial decisions hidden from the public.
When key checks and guardrails designed to prevent the misuse of tax dollars are bypassed, we need to know what went wrong so we can prevent it from happening again. That’s why the Iowa Constitution creates a tax-payers’ watchdog in the form of the State Auditor.
We’ll respect the decision of the Supreme Court, whatever they decide. But I will continue believing that shining a light on what transpired behind closed doors will go a long way toward rebuilding the community’s trust, holding elected officials accountable, and answering tax-payers’ questions about how their money was spent. That kind of transparency isn’t a threat to good government; it’s the foundation of it.
