Iowa Auditor Rob Sand said in a news conference Tuesday he would welcome the opportunity to audit and investigate Des Moines Public Schools in the wake of former Superintendent Ian Roberts’ arrest — but said the request submitted by GOP lawmakers last week was invalid.
Last week, three state senators — Sens. Jesse Green, R-Boone; Kerry Gruenhagen, R-Walcott, and Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia — sent a letter to Sand him to audit and investigate the spending practices of the Des Moines school district in light of the Roberts situation. Roberts was arrested and detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late September.
In the weeks since his arrest, it has been confirmed Roberts was given an order of removal by an immigration judge in May 2024 — and reporting has found the Guyana native had falsified parts of his resume and credentials in addition to not disclosing his immigration status or criminal history during the Des Moines hiring process.
The Associated Press also reported that three months after he was hired, Roberts had asked the Des Moines school board for emergency approval of $116,000 in contracts for “culturally responsive coaching” that included a contract with Lively Paradox, a company that he was affiliated with as a consultant and speaker.
Finance officials warned Roberts that the contract with Lively Paradox requested in September 2023 would be a conflict of interest, and the superintendent canceled the request. But Lively Paradox was paid $6,476 by DMPS for consulting and travel expenses in December 2023 for a school board retreat, records show, an expense that was not flagged as a conflict of interest by the board or district staff.
This contracting issue, alongside other reports related to Roberts’ hiring and service at DMPS, are subjects that could warrant investigation, Sand told reporters at a news conference.
“After reading those reports, yeah, we have concerns,” Sand said. “We are already conducting two other reviews of spending by superintendents and other districts in the state. But again, the law says we can’t do this until we have a qualifying request. Just because the word ‘auditor’ is in the name doesn’t mean that we can jump out and audit any taxpayer, for example. We follow the law first. We want to know the facts, but we want to make sure that we’re doing things correctly.”
The letter sent by the three senators called for Sand to “take the time to do the job and help both lawmakers and Iowans as we continue to deal with the consequences of Roberts’ deceptions” and perform an audit of the school district. But Sand said his office cannot begin an audit of DMPS on this request. It must be requested by a Des Moines school board member, DMPS staff, or through a petition with 100 signatures from people living within the district.
Sand said at the time of the news conference, his office had not received a qualifying request to audit DMPS from a valid party. State law would have to change in order to allow his office to accept the state lawmakers’ request, he said, but added, “I don’t think that that’s a good idea.”
“We have avenues that are appropriate and then work right,” Sand said. “Anyone who’s a DMPS employee right now can send an email to info@aos.iowa.gov from their personal email, show us that they’re an employee of Des Moines public schools, and that is enough for us to initiate and audit.”
The auditor, the only Democrat to hold statewide elected office and who is running for governor in 2026, said the state legislators’ letter was “partisan politics.” He said all three of the GOP senators had supported a 2023 law that he said allows public officials to refuse to turn over certain documents during an audit, in addition to supporting the state’s Education Savings Account (ESA) program providing public funds for private school tuition and associated costs, which Sand has said does not allow for adequate oversight over how private schools spend taxpayer dollars.
Sand also questioned why lawmakers did not request an audit of the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, the state entity that granted Roberts an administrator license in July 2023.
Gov. Kim Reynolds signed an executive order earlier in October requiring the licensure board, alongside all state government departments, to use the federal E-Verify and SAVE systems to verify applicants’ immigration and citizenship status when hiring workers and granting occupational and professional licenses.
“This is what legislators can request: They can request reviews of issues of spending by a state department with money from a state department. That’s it,” Sand said. “You’ll notice that none of them requested us to review what was going on with the Iowa (Board of) Education Examiners, who actually approved a license for Ian Roberts to teach. That might be partisan politics.”
Sand said if a qualifying request from a DMPS employee or school board member is made or a petition is submitted, the auditor’s office would not reveal the identity of the person making the request, but would confirm that an audit was requested or started. If an audit of DMPS is started, Sand refrained from giving any estimates on how long the investigation would take.
“The problem with giving people a time frame is, once you’ve given them a time frame, the integrity of your prediction of the time frame is competing with the integrity of the report,” Sand said. “You don’t want to put yourself in that situation, because you want to make sure that you’re focused on the integrity of the report. Sometimes it’s eight months. Sometimes it’s 18 months.”
(Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
