The Iowa State Auditor’s Office will conduct a review of Des Moines Public Schools following the immigration arrest of former superintendent Ian Roberts, Auditor Rob Sand has announced.
“The State Auditor’s Office received a qualifying request for an audit this afternoon and will conduct procedures at DMPS as a result,” Sand said in an Oct. 14 statement. “The request itself is confidential in our office’s hands and will not be shared.”
DMPS officials said in a news release the same day that “Interim Superintendent Matt Smith and the DMPS School Board are fully committed to cooperating with government entities to the fullest extent of the law and have formally requested an audit from the Iowa Auditor’s Office.”
The DMPS said while the audit will “add additional financial and personnel costs to the district, it will confirm the strength of the district’s current processes and procedures while underscoring the high level of financial visibility and accountability that guides DMPS.”
“We have strong processes, but we welcome third-party validation of these efforts and that is why we have made this request,” Smith said.
Earlier in the day, Sand held a news conference where he laid out the parameters necessary to open an audit of the district, and he suggested a group of Republican senators was playing “partisan politics” with the issue.
Republican state Sens. Jesse Green of Boone, Kerry Gruenhagen of Walcott and Lynn Evans of Aurelia sent a public letter to Sand on Oct. 8 accusing Sand of failing to do his job and requesting an audit of DMPS. They chair the Education Appropriations, Government Oversight and Education committees in the Iowa Senate, respectively.
“You, as the state’s auditor, who claims to be the taxpayer watchdog while politicizing your office and spending more time campaigning for governor than actually focusing on your job, have a duty to that office and to Iowans to focus more of your time on your current job than trying to get the next one,” they wrote in the letter.
Sand, a Democrat, is running for governor in 2026.
Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand speaks during a press conference in his office at the Iowa State Capitol on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025, in Des Moines.
Sand told reporters he can’t unilaterally open an audit into the district without first receiving a qualifying request from a school board member, a district employee or a petition of at least 100 people residing in the school district.
The senators’ request did not meet the necessary criteria, Sand said.
“They either knew that that request was something I couldn’t fulfill legally and knew they were inviting me to break the law, or they were just totally ignorant of the law and really focused on politics rather than getting things right,” he said.
At the news conference, Sand said his office would welcome a qualifying request, and he said he wanted to make sure the public understood what’s necessary.
“We’re standing up here today to say, ‘Hey, we’re here. This is our job. We will do our job. We just have to have that request from any employee,’” he said.
Hours later, he said his office had received that request and would move forward with the reaudit.
Green issued a statement following Sand’s news conference saying that Sand had “doubled down on protecting his allies and refusing to do this job.”
He said he believed a different section of Iowa Code would have allowed Sand to move forward unilaterally. It states:
“In addition to the powers and duties under other provisions of the Code, the auditor of state may at any time cause to be made a complete or partial reaudit of the financial condition and transactions of any governmental subdivision, or an office of any governmental subdivision” if “the auditor of state has probable cause to believe such action is necessary in the public interest because of a material deficiency in an audit of the governmental subdivision filed with the auditor of state or because of a substantial failure of the audit to comply with the standards and procedures established and published by the auditor of state.”
Green said Sand is “trying to distract from the fact that he doesn’t want to do his job and cares more about protecting his friends on the Des Moines Public School Board than being the so-called taxpayers’ watchdog.”
Sonya Heitshusen, a spokesperson for Sand’s office, said that section of code means the auditor can move forward with a reaudit if they believe the existing audit has a material deficiency.
Rob Sand ‘absolutely’ concerned about possibility of Ian Roberts’ conflict of interest
Sand said he’s “absolutely” concerned about reports that former DMPS superintendent Ian Roberts asked the school board for emergency approval of contracts to a company that Roberts was associated with, potentially raising a conflict of interest.
“After reading those reports, yeah, we have concerns,” Sand said. “We are already conducting two other reviews of spending by superintendents in other districts in the state. But again, the law says we can’t do this until we have a qualifying request.”
The district’s Chief Financial Officer Shashank Aurora previously told the Des Moines Register that DMPS undergoes an audit annually and is in the middle of its next audit covering fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30. Those findings are tentatively expected to be presented in December to the Des Moines School Board, Aurora said.
In its recent audit, for fiscal year 2024, the auditing firm RSM US LLP issued an unmodified, or clean, opinion on the district’s financial statements — which Aurora said was the highest level of certification from auditors.
He said the district for the last 10 years has been awarded a Certificate of Excellence in financial reporting by both the Association of School Business Officials and Government Finance Officers Association.
Des Moines Register reporter Marissa Payne contributed to this report.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. She writes about campaigns, elections and the Iowa Caucuses. Reach her at [email protected] or 515-284-8244. Follow her on X at @brianneDMR.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Rob Sand opens audit of Des Moines Public Schools
