(Des Moines, Iowa) – State Auditor Rob Sand, today (Friday), released an audit report on the City of Audubon. There were no, unusual findings noted in the report, just some issues with administrative oversight, which is a common feature of reports from the Auditor’s Office.

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS:
The City’s receipts totaled $6,352,289 for the year ended June 30, 2022, a 2.8% increase over the prior year. Disbursements for the year ended June 30, 2022, totaled $5,181,056, a 7.8% decrease from the prior year. The decrease in disbursements is primarily due to the decrease in capital project activity in the current fiscal year.

AUDIT FINDINGS:
Sand reported seven findings related to the receipt and disbursement of taxpayer funds. They are found on pages 48 through 56 of the report. The findings address issues such as a lack of segregation of duties, errors in financial reporting, disbursements exceeding budgeted amounts and deficit fund balances in the Special Revenue, Road Use Tax and Economic Development Funds. Sand provided the City and the component unit with recommendations to address each of the findings.

Six of the seven findings discussed above pertaining to the City, are repeated from the prior year. Sand said “The City Council has a fiduciary responsibility to provide oversight of the City’s operations and financial transactions. Oversight is typically defined as the “watchful and responsible care” a governing body exercises in its fiduciary capacity.”

A copy of the audit report is available for review on the Auditor of State’s website at Audit Reports – Auditor of State.

(Radio Iowa) – A Bettendorf woman who claimed to have cancer has been ordered to repay people who donated to cover cancer treatments she never received. Twenty-year-old Madison Russo has pleaded guilty to one count of first degree theft in June and could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. K-W-Q-C reports court documents show she must pay restitution to victims of her cancer scam before or as she’s sentenced on October 20th. Russo has been ordered to pay over 39-thousand dollars in total, but most of that must be paid to GoFundMe, where more than 400 donors gave money to support her.

Donations came from individuals, schools, businesses and non-profit groups. According to court documents, Russo used photos cancer patients had posted online and claimed she had leukemia, pancreatic cancer and a tumor the size of a football wrapped around her spine.

(Bartlett, Iowa) — A body pulled from Iowa side of the Missouri River last month, was identified as a woman from Nebraska. According to KETV in Omaha, officials with the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) reported 39-year-old Elizabeth Adair, of Omaha, was found on July 18th, about four-miles south of the Bartlett boat ramp, west of Bartlett, in Fremont County. Her body was found U.S. Army Corps of Engineers workers.

Adair was identified through finger prints. A State Medical Examiner’s Office autopsy determined no foul play was involved in the woman’s death. Her death was investigated by Fremont County Sheriff’s Office and Iowa DCI, with assistance from Omaha Police.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – If you need to travel around the U.S. 20/Interstate 29 interchange in Sioux City next week, please watch for ramp closures as the Iowa Department of Transportation crews inspect bridges in the area. The five bridges are on U.S. 20 and will be inspected on Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, weather permitting. The DOT will be closing the westbound U.S. 20 to the southbound I-29 ramp on Monday, Aug. 7. Motorists will  be directed to a detour using Floyd Boulevard.

On Tuesday, Aug. 8., the DOT will close the southbound I-29 exit to eastbound U.S. 20 (to Fort Dodge). Travelers will be directed to a detour on U.S.20 over to Nebraska and then turning around to go east.

Both of these ramp closures will be in place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

(Sioux City, Iowa via KCAU) – Iowa Dept. of Transportation data show nearly 80% of Iowa motorcyclists killed in 2022 were not wearing a helmet. As thousands of bikers head to Sturgis, South Dakota for a motorcycle rally that runs through August 13th, the Iowa State Patrol urges safe driving.

Seventy-eight percent of motorcyclists killed in 2022 were not wearing a helmet, a 3% increase from 2021, and a 10% increase from 2020.  The number of fatalities, 49, was down from 2021, when 68 motorcyclists died. Despite Iowa’s lack of a motorcycle helmet law, Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Alex Dinkla said the Iowa State Patrol always recommends safety.

Thirty-two bikers have been killed on Iowa roads so far in 2023, putting Iowa on track to see more motorcycle fatalities than in 2022. There were no laws introduced in the most recent legislative session to require riders to protect themself with a helmet. Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire are the three states with no motorcycle helmet laws. Other states require helmets for riders age 17 or younger, or for all riders.  In 2022, 45% of motorcyclists were impaired, a 2% decrease from 2021 and 6% decrease from 2020.

83rd Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, 2023 (Sturgis.com)

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak report a woman was arrested Thursday evening on a Red Oak P-D warrant. 31-year-old Amanda Joy Williams, of Red Oak, was wanted on a warrant for Urinating and Defecating in Public. Williams was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $300 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – The legislative liaison for the state Board of Education says there isn’t one general set of instructions to schools for removing books from school libraries. Liaison Eric St. Clair was asked about the new laws that prohibit publications that depict sex acts and the teaching about gender identity. “We get feedback from the field, which is helpful in terms of what perhaps we thought was clear and isn’t clear. And as we get that feedback we review it on a case-by-case basis and determine how to appropriately respond,” St. Clair says. He was asked if there is a general set of guidelines they use to respond to districts. “It depends on the situation, and how it would be best addressed,” he says.

Board president, John Roberts, says he’s also getting feedback. “Talking to educators, there’s a lot of confusion, I know. People in the field that I’ve talked with, are looking for the D-E (Department of Education) or for somebody who provides direction, because right now people are and neither guessing what is right or wrong and not being a violation of the law,” he says. Roberts says the law doesn’t take effect until the first of the year — but there is confusion now as districts try to address the issue. “Anything that the D-E can do to help alleviate some of that confusion would be more than welcome,” he says.

The law also requires school districts to make available a comprehensive list of all books available to students in school libraries on their website.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans who plan to do some back-to-school shopping today (Friday) and tomorrow will be able to stock up on new duds at a discount as it’s the state’s annual Tax-Free Holiday. John Fuller, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Revenue, says the tax holiday always falls on the first weekend in August. “There are some rules around this,” Fuller says, “and basically Iowans will not be charged sales tax when they purchase clothing or footwear that’s less than $100.”

He offers some examples of what is — and isn’t — included in the two-day holiday. “If you want to buy maybe school shoes for your children, and they’re less than $100, you would not pay — in most parts of the state — the 7% sales tax,” Fuller says. “It does not include things like jewelry, sunglasses, things like that, but clothing and footwear, typically clothing that you would wear every day.”

Iowa’s first tax-free weekend was held in August of 2000. Fuller says the holiday helps Iowa’s economy and its businesses. “They benefit by about $5-million not paying sales taxes for those two days, so it’s significant,” Fuller says. “It goes up a little bit each year and I think it’ll be popular again this year just because inflation is creeping up and whenever you can save some money, that’s a good thing.”

The Tax-Free weekend started at 12:01 this morning and runs through 11:59 P-M Saturday. Learn more at https://tax.iowa.gov/iowas-annual-sales-tax-holiday.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa State University professor’s research is part of a large, federally funded project to improve the quality of sweet corn. Alan Myers is a professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology at Iowa State. His research is focused on how carbohydrates are stored in sweet corn kernels. “What I look at directly is the synthesis part,” Myers says, “the growth of the kernel from when it’s first fertilized from pollen and egg into making the mature kernel that we chomp down on when we bite down on an ear of corn.”

Field corn that’s fed to livestock or converted into ethanol has starch granules that make the kernels grainy and really hard. “Those things don’t exist or there are a lot fewer of them in sweet corn varieties,” Myers says. “…That gives it the taste and mouth texture that people like to eat when they eat good, fresh sweet corn.” The carbohydrates Myers is studying give sweet corn kernels that soft and creamy texture.

“And when people bite into it, it tastes good,” Myers says. The I-S-U laboratory that Myers leads and another lab in Ames that’s focused on speeding up development of hybrid varieties are splitting 800-thousand dollars in federal funding for corn-related research over the next four years. It’s part of a project involving researchers in other parts of the country with the goals of boosting the sugar content and improving the shelf life of sweet corn.

The project is being coordinated by the University of Florida. About 20 percent of the sweet corn grown in the U.S. comes from Florida — making it the top sweet corn producing state.