Auditor Sand visits Keokuk County

State Auditor Rob Sand visited Keokuk County last week, as part of his 99-county tour of the State of Iowa. Since being elected in 2018, Sand has opted to change the scope of his office, making it more than simply an accounting firm. One thing in particular that he talked about is a new initiative started by his office called the “PIE Initiative”. Put simply, the initiative is an effort to assist in the auditing process, and help communities and counties find ways to save money and become more efficient.

“The thing that I didn’t know they could do was make efficiency recommendations,” Sand said. Sand said prior to his coming into the office, there were not many efficiency recommendations made by the State Auditors’ Office.

“Which to me, is wild. I don’t recall every seeing anybody campaign on wanting to actually increase government waste,” Sand said. “I just think there was too narrow of a focus on this office,” he added.

Sand said that his office has created a checklist to work with local governments to help them find ways to eliminate waste and become more streamlined by taking ideas implemented by municipality and sharing them with others across the state. The checklist would not be mandated, however it would be a little bit of extra work for city and county leaders as they explore the ideas on the checklist. Sand said that there would, however, be opportunities for reward for those who chose to use the checklist: a PIE contest for municipalities that show strong improvement.

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