Iowa Officials Face Backlash Over Transparency Issues: Des Moines County and State Treasurer s Controversies

Talk about bad optics—and I’m not talking about outdated glasses. Today’s topic is public perception.

Two recent news stories highlight an uncomfortable truth about Iowa: too many government officials, at both state and local levels, are uncomfortable with the public scrutinizing their work.

One case, filled with irony, involves the Des Moines County Board of Supervisors. The other centers on State Treasurer Roby Smith.

As a journalist, I’ve covered stories like these since the beginning of my career. One of my first was about a county supervisor who arranged for his son to buy a county tractor without a public bidding process.

Research consistently shows that taxpayers value transparency in government. They appreciate the work of watchdogs—journalists and citizens—who attend meetings and shed light on how public funds are being spent.

At a recent meeting, the Des Moines County supervisors voted to kick out the public and enter a closed session to discuss how the county handles public records requests.

You read that right. The supervisors closed the meeting to talk about transparency.

According to The Burlington Hawk Eye, the county’s IT director argued that the session should be private because other counties are facing many records requests from data-mining companies. These companies, he said, compile government information into reports and sell it.

Supervisor Chairman Tom Broeker defended the closed session, citing a provision in Iowa’s public meetings law that allows private discussions about records that are required or authorized by law to be kept confidential.

But there’s a catch: the records in question, such as real estate records, are not confidential. These documents have been available to the public for nearly 200 years, since the early days of Des Moines County.

In other words, the supervisors didn’t want to discuss the public’s business with the public in the room. This contradicts the first paragraph of Iowa’s 50-year-old public meetings law, which emphasizes the importance of conducting government business openly.

The second story involves Treasurer Roby Smith, who rejected a journalist’s request for records showing how often he works from his home in Davenport instead of his office in Des Moines. His office argued that disclosing the number of days he scanned his security badge at the Capitol could endanger his safety.

Of course, no one wants to jeopardize Smith’s safety. But the idea that revealing the number of days he worked at the Capitol last month could pose a risk today is hard to swallow.

The real issue here is accountability. Elected officials in Iowa don’t punch a time clock, but they are still accountable to the public.

Smith’s situation became more uncomfortable due to a couple of facts. Three years ago, Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered state employees to return to their offices after the pandemic. Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst has been a vocal critic of federal employees working from home, calling for greater transparency on the practice.

Journalist Laura Belin, who runs the Bleeding Heartland website, uncovered public records showing that Smith had been reimbursed for traveling to meetings of the Iowa Lottery Board and the IPERS investment board—meetings held outside the Capitol. However, he had not been reimbursed for his commute between Davenport and the Capitol.

Belin then requested security badge records showing when Smith entered the Capitol, but officials denied the request, citing a public records exemption for information related to security measures, such as restricted area passes or security procedures.

Belin wasn’t asking for sensitive security details—just the number of days Smith used his badge. Releasing that information doesn’t pose any more risk to his safety than revealing his travel reimbursement records.

As I told Belin, my guess is that the treasurer’s office doesn’t want the public to know that Smith spends most of his time working from Davenport.

Personally, I’m fine with Smith working from home. What I’m not fine with is his office trying to hide how often he’s at the Capitol.

Similarly, I don’t mind the Des Moines County supervisors discussing how they’ll respond to companies seeking large volumes of real estate data. But those discussions should happen in public, not behind closed doors.

The Legislature has made it clear that conducting public business out in the open might cause inconvenience or embarrassment to officials. But that’s the point—citizens need to hold their leaders accountable.