State Auditor Rob Sand says his office will conduct an audit of the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown. Sand says the audit comes at the request of State Representative Sue Cahill, a Democrat from Marshalltown. Cahill tells Sand the audit is needed after the unexpected layoffs in July of eleven full-time staff. She says these cuts were made without input from the Legislature and occurred despite the home receiving an additional one million dollars in state funding during the budget process.

Cahill says in her letter to Sand that the cuts are in direct conflict of their mission to “provide a continuum of care to Iowa’s veterans and their spouses in an environment focusing on individualized services to enhance their quality of life.”

A spokesman for the Iowa Veterans Home released a statement that says the new structure is built to improve service delivery for residents. Unfortunately, there’s been disinformation throughout the transition, and the main points made by Cahill appear misinformed and factually wrong. It says the assertions that 11 employees were laid off and the realignment would “negatively affect the quality of care are objectively, verifiably false.”

Dar Danielson, Radio Iowa