Auditor: Iowa Gov. Reynolds must return $450K in COVID funds

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s state auditor again called for Gov. Kim Reynolds to return nearly $450,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds that were used to pay for 21 governor’s office staff members for three months in 2020.

Auditor Rob Sand, a Democrat, in a new report released Tuesday repeated his recommendation from October 2020 and last December that the funds be returned.

Sand says the Republican governor not only misspent the federal money but tried to conceal it by passing it through the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Reynolds has said she believed the use of funds was permissible. And a spokesman for Reynolds has said that during the months in question, Reynolds’ staff members spent most of their time responding to the pandemic.