- Messenger photo by Bill Shea State Auditor Rob Sand, center, poses with former state Sen. Daryl Beall and Webster County Supervisor Niki Conrad Friday morning on the Fort Dodge City Square. Sand talked with a small group of people about the work of his office. Sand, a Democrat, is seeking reelection this year.

Iowa Auditor of State Rob Sand isn’t a baker, but he does talk a lot about PIE.

In this case, PIE is not dessert. It’s an acronym for Public Innovations and Efficiencies.

That’s one of the programs he has put in place since taking office four years ago. He told a small Fort Dodge audience Friday morning that under his leadership, the Auditor’s Office has been more pro-active.

“This office is doing more than it has historically to make both good and bad government accountable,” he said.

“We are being more aggressive than the office has been in the past,” he added.

And while people would expect the Auditor’s Office to call attention to mismanagement, Sand said he’s also promoting good government by collecting and publicizing PIE recipes. Those recipes are in fact money-savings practices that his office learns about and then shares.

“When people do something good, we should celebrate that,” Sand said.

He said the Republican state auditor in Mississippi has adopted a version of PIE after learning about it.

According to Sand, his office has uncovered $25 million in misspent taxpayer dollars over four years. The biggest chunk of that money was $20 million in federal COVID relief money which he said Gov. Kim Reynolds improperly spent on software. He said the administration of President Donald Trump agreed with his findings.

Sand is a Democrat and Reynolds is a Republican, but he said Saturday that he has “both criticized and defended Gov. Reynolds according to the facts.”

Sand has opposed taxpayer funded settlements to end sexual harassment lawsuits against the state governemt.

“The only way we’re going to make that happen less often is to make the people who do the harassment personally accountable,” he said.

He said he wants to adopt a system in which the state pays the victim of the harassment and then “”goes after” the offender to recoup its costs.

He added that he also wants a new state law that will require mandatory prison sentences for those convicted of stealing large amounts of taxpayer money.

Sand is unopposed for the Democratic nomination for auditor in this year’s election. Todd Halbur and Mary Ann Hanusa are seeking the Republican nomination.