A recent report was released by the Iowa Auditor’s Office pertaining to a community in Dallas County about some unusual financial issues.

Iowa Auditor Rob Sand opened a special investigation into the City of Linden from the time period of December 7th, 2020 to February 28th, 2023 after city officials requested that he review transactions made by former City Clerk, Mandi Hutchins. According to Sand’s findings, he discovered that there were approximately $10,670 of undeposited utility billings, about $3,400 of improper disbursements, and $3,500 of unsupported disbursements. 

Sand tells Raccoon Valley Radio that in order to do a special audit, his office must receive a request from an elected official, an employee, or a petition that has an undisclosed number of signatures, and that determining factors normally relate to fraud. One of Sand’s recommendations to help prevent problems that one person handling all of those financial transactions is to segregate those duties. Sand brings up that he recently spoke with the Superintendent of the Hartwick-Ladora-Victor School District, who created a “segregation of duties” team to put multiple eyes on different areas. He reveals the benefits this could have on a smaller community like Linden.

“Segregation of duties is the idea that you don’t want one person to have the keys to the kingdom. If you do, you’re in trouble, and it just gives them a much bigger opportunity to steal money or to mispend it because no one else is looking. Certainly, Linden could do this in part with Dallas County and part with another neighboring city, and if you take a person from each of those entities and ask them to do one part of it, you can build that segregation of duties team across a couple of different local governments that can help you make sure that you’ve got proper oversight in checks and balances.”

Sand describes that his office was notified by city officials that Linden hadn’t sent out utility bills in November and December of 2022. He notes that Hutchins resigned from her position and then when the new city clerk was hired, city officials learned that bills were not shared with the city council, as well as payroll concerns on the City of Linden’s credit card. Sand encourages Iowa communities to implement procedures to ensure the city’s internal controls are strengthened.