Auditor Sand proposes accountability measures, accountant incentive

Iowa Republicans have been at work limiting the powers of Iowa’s sole statewide Democrat Auditor Rob Sand. As the session opened, he released some proposals aimed at greater government accountability and addressing the accountant shortage.

State Auditor Rob Sand won’t stop talking about PIE. His Public Innovations and Efficiencies program encourages local governments to find ways to reduce spending and shares those ideas with other government entities—plans he calls “PIE recipes.”

Democrat Sand’s work to incentivize less spending is a small balance to Iowa Republican leaders’ continued revenue slashing, an effort that is expected to continue this Legislative session. 

Sand is asking the Legislature to further the program by requiring his office to prepare an annual report of “recipes” to be distributed statewide.

One crisis slowly unfolding with rolling retirements is a widespread shortage of Iowa’s accountants. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 300,000 accountants left the profession between the years of 2019 and 2021. That’s a 17% decline in the pool of accountants nationwide. For Iowa, that’s a particular challenge since state and local governments are required to do annual audits. 

To this, Sand announced Tuesday a plan to exempt certified public accountants from the state income tax while performing audits and examinations of government. The bill would apply retroactively to tax years beginning after January 1, 2025.  

“I’ve already tried to ease the shortage in our office by eliminating the four-year degree requirement and hiring accountants with associate degrees,” Sand said.  “The tax exemption incentivizes private CPA firms to perform government audits crucial to tracking how the government spends your money.”

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