(Red Oak, Iowa) – A woman from Montgomery County was arrested Tuesday afternoon on charges that include (Felony) Neglect of a Dependent Person, and Child Endangerment (Agg. Misdemeanor). Red Oak Police report 29-year-old Chantal Kaye Sperling, of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 4:40-p.m., at a residence in the 700 block of Skyline Drive. She was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $10,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Graduates with an associate’s degree from an accounting program at one of Iowa’s 15 community colleges are now eligible to apply for some of the jobs in the state auditor’s office. State Auditor Rob Sand says Iowa has a shortage of people with four-year accounting degrees. “There are a ton of people out there who have a lot of intelligence and a lot of common sense who choose to get a two year degree instead of a four year degree. We shouldn’t discriminate against them,” Sand says. “We should welcome them into the office just like we would anywhere else.”

W.D. Isley, vice president of academic affairs at Des Moines Area Community College, says there are 365 students in DMACC’s accounting program and, once they graduate, they’ll be in high demand. “The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is projecting strong job growth for accountants and auditors,” Isley says. “In fact, over the next decade, the bureau is projecting nearly 82,000 (employees) will be needed in the accounting and auditing field.” Will Bond, the chair of DMACC’s accounting department, says accounting practices for state and local governments were added to the curriculum a few years ago.

“So today, the graduates coming out will have that governmental accounting which will help position them for auditing jobs, such as this one,” he says. Mariah Mullins is president of DMACC’s Accounting Club and she’s already employed full-time as a property manager. “I’ve learned to, for lack of a better phrase, ‘speak money,'” Mullins says. “As long as equity and revenue and even things as simply as inventory are part of everyday life, an accountant has a job. The deeper I get into my education with accounting, the more opportunities I develop for myself.”

After one more semester, Mullins will finish her associate’s degree and she plans to apply for a job in the auditor’s office. “Yeah,” Mullins said, laughing along with a crowd gathered in the auditor’s office. “I don’t see why not.” The number of people working in accounting jobs in the United States has declined 17 percent since 2019. Sand says that means hiring and retaining staff difficult in the public and private sectors.

“What we see when we don’t have enough people in accounting is reports that are getting done more slowly and people who are doing the work who are carrying a bigger workload, who are more stressed,” Sand says. “That makes it harder for them to stay in the industry.” According to the American Institute of C-P-As, the number of students graduating with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting peaked in 2012 and, by 2018, had already dropped by seven percent.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest today (Tuesday), of an Atlantic woman. 35-year-old Jenny Clark was arrested on warrants for Intent to Manufacture / Deliver a Controlled Substance and Involuntary Manslaughter.

Clark was transported to the Cass County Jail where she was booked and held. Sheriff Darby McLaren said any further information will come from the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, and that he could not comment further on the case.

All criminal charges are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in the court of law.

(Radio Iowa) – The Des Moines Register reports a hearing over state tax credits granted to an ethanol company will not be open to the public.

South Dakota-based Poet Biorefining operates a dozen plants in Iowa. In March of 2021, the Iowa Department of Revenue notified Poet it did not qualify for the state’s research activities tax credit and must repay the State of Iowa for any credits it has received. According to The Des Moines Register, Poet’s attorneys are arguing the financial documents they will present at the hearing are confidential and state officials are operating under the assumption it’s up to Poet to determine whether the public should see or hear about those materials.

Iowa Freedom of Information Council executive director Randy Evans says that decision is troubling.

“The taxpayers who have a lot at stake in this case are really cut out of knowing even the basics of what is involved,” Evans says. “There are ways to protect the trade secrets or proprietary information of Poet without sticking the taxpayers in the dark on it.”

The hearing over this tax issue is scheduled for next Monday. A spokesperson for Poet was not immediately available for comment. Several other ethanol companies have been notified they’re in a similar spot and appealing the state’s notice to repay research activities credits they’ve received.

Poet operates plans in Arthur, Ashton, Coon Rapids, Corning, Emmetsburg, Fairbank, Gowrie, Hanlontown, Iowa Falls, Jewell, Menlo and Shell Rock.

(Radio Iowa) – A small town near one of the Iowa Great Lakes has to set up new oversight of its drinking water supply.

For the past eight decades, the City of Orleans has been buying its drinking water from the City of Spirit Lake. Orleans City Attorney Don Hemphill says the Department of Natural Resources wants someone to be responsible for the quality of the water that comes out of the town’s taps –and Spirit Lake has notified Orleans it does not want to assume responsibility for the water distribution system in Orleans.

“And that responsibility involves testing and monitoring and operations,” Hemphill says, “so that brings us to where we have got to make a significant change.” Hemphill says the Orleans City Council has two basic options. “One is to accept bulk water from Spirit Lake and establish their own distribution system and the other is to turn the system to Iowa Lakes Regional Water, which is willing to operate it,” he says. “Either way is going to involve significantly increased costs.”

The Orleans City Council has asked an engineering firm to analyze the two alternatives and determine which is cheaper in the long run. Orleans, which is near the southern shore of Big Spirit Lake, has about 520 permanent residents according to the 2020 Census, but its population swells during the summertime when the Iowa Great Lakes region becomes a vacation spot.