(Radio Iowa) – State Ombudsman, Bernardo Granwehr, says while a majority of the complaints his office handled in the last fiscal year were from inmates in state prisons and local jails — there were a wide variety of other concerns. “Human services type complaints are probably the second most, but from a percentage standpoint, they’re really all over the board,” he says. “Anywhere from complaints about snow removal, or that kind of thing, or, it could be child welfare related type type stuff.” He says anything to do with state and local government agencies can end up generating complaints. Granwehr says his office does what it can to help.

“If it turns out that there’s something, you know, a process that could be potentially improved, that people are sticking on a little bit, or running into problems with, we can we can work with that agency,”Granwher says. He says Iowa’s Ombudsman is unique when it comes to others across the country. “There’s a variety of ombudsman offices across the nation, but Hawaii is the only office along with our office, they are only two in the nation that have such a broad jurisdiction,” he says.

Granwehr encourages you to be sure you’ve tried all your options for resolving your situation before calling his office.