Iowa County Could Not Document $12.2M of a $13.6M Fund

A special investigation by the Iowa Office of Auditor of State⧉ -- Iowa's independently elected fiscal watchdog, whose findings get referred to prosecutors when they turn up potential crimes -- found that one county employee, former Human Resources Manager Tamara "Tammy" Wise, controlled four Tama County funds for over five years with almost no one checking her work.▸ The largest, the county's Health Insurance fund, ran through its own separate bank account where Wise alone was the authorized check signer; the Board of Supervisors never reviewed its monthly statements. When auditors finally traced its $13,594,434.47 in disbursements, the county could produce documentation for only about one dollar in ten. Across those four funds, plus her own reimbursements and County credit card, the audit flagged $251,269.62 as questioned, improper, or unsupported outright.

Wise was hired as Tama County's Human Resources Manager and Insurance Coordinator in July 2018.▸ Beyond her personnel duties, she managed four County funds: the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) fund⧉ -- $3,273,692.00 in pandemic-relief money the county received in September 2021 -- plus the county's Mental Health, Health Insurance, and Substance Abuse funds. The Health Insurance fund's own bank account meant its disbursements never passed through the county auditor's normal monthly bill-approval process, the way the county's other checks did. County officials didn't request the special investigation until February 2025, after they noticed "significant financial irregularities" and, specifically, an invoice for a generator delivered to Wise's home. The Board fired her the same day.

This is the mechanism, not an adjective: without Board sign-off or itemized receipts, there was no point at which anyone besides Wise ever checked what left this account.▸ Of the fund's 766 disbursements, auditors could document only $1.4 million outright. Another $153,038.60 had no documentation and no plausible explanation. The remaining $12,044,364.45 -- 88.6% of the entire fund -- also had no supporting paperwork, but auditors let it pass as "unsupported but reasonable" purely because it went to vendors like the county's own self-insurance program. When investigators asked the county's insurance broker for backup, the broker said it didn't have any⧉ -- its job was customer service and financial reporting, not record-keeping. Combined, $12,197,644.24 of the fund's $13,594,434.47 -- 89.7% -- passed through the county's books with nothing behind it.

Where records did exist, the pattern was consistent across every fund Wise touched.▸ Of $86,251.65 in sampled disbursements from the ARPA fund, $81,376.30 -- 94.4% -- were questioned costs, including $19,500 paid to a web developer for a rebuild the county says was never finished and $16,410.99 for a drone supported only by a price quote, not an invoice. Of her own $4,110.72 in mileage and expense reimbursements, $1,527.03 -- more than a third -- was either improper (mileage claimed for trips with no matching event on her calendar) or unsupported. On her county credit card, $9,253.96 of $38,497.39 in charges -- a quarter -- was flagged, including $321.33 for light fixtures and fishing gear, and a personal prescription rung up at a dollar store.

The clearest example of personal use surfaced almost by accident, when a coworker going through Wise's office files found what investigators called an "interesting" invoice: an $8,760.45 generator delivered to her personal residence.▸ No county fund paid the bill directly. But because Wise placed the order under the county's own tax-exempt status -- the exemption Tama County holds so it doesn't pay sales tax on its own government purchases -- she personally avoided $613.23 in Iowa sales tax on a purchase for her own home. Under Iowa's constitution, public funds and public privileges may be used only for a "public purpose"; a state Attorney General opinion the auditors cited puts it plainly: "the line to be drawn between a proper and improper purpose is very thin." A home generator crossed it. Once investigators found the generator, they tested every ARPA transaction Wise had touched -- which is how the $81,376.30 in questioned ARPA costs surfaced in the first place.

One more figure stands out for what it says about who was positioned to catch any of this.▸ In 2017, the county's Mental Health fund paid Wise's daughter $14,690.00 across 28 disbursements for data-processing work -- with no signed contract and no surviving timesheets to show what hours were actually worked. Since April 2022, that same daughter has served as Tama County Treasurer -- the elected office responsible, under Iowa law, for county financial recordkeeping. The auditors don't allege the Treasurer's office was involved in any of the findings in this report; the point is structural, not personal: the office set up to be an independent check on county money has, for over three years, been held by the family of the employee this report is about.