State Auditor Rob Sand made a stop at Rustic Brew in Hampton as part of his 100 Town Hall Tour Friday.
Sand, a Democrat, is in his second term as state auditor after first being elected in 2018. In May, Sand announced his candidacy for governor in the 2026 election.
Sand spoke to a crowd of over 50 people on why he is running for governor and what challenges Iowans are facing today. Sand then took questions on a variety of topics from those attending, including one about Iowa’s rank among states with the highest cancer rates in the United States.
“When I talk about agriculture in the state of Iowa, one of the things I emphasize is that the main problem here is politicians, actually. It’s not farmers. We know that for a few reasons. Survey after survey says that the large majority of farmers are concerned about the impact of agriculture on water quality and want to do better. Let me tell you what they’re doing in order to do that. Almost every single conservation program has more farmers who put together applications for cost sharing to improve conservation, then politicians allocate money to pay for those cost shares. So if farmers are saying, ‘here’s what I want to do, I will pay my part, I just need somebody to help me out with it.’ But if politicians don’t fund the programs enough to actually do all the projects, if farmers are saying, and raise their hands and say, ‘we want to do this.’ I think that’s wrong.”
Another concern raised during the town hall was funding for public schools and Iowa’s school voucher program, the “Students First Act,” which was signed into law in 2023.
“We should be funding public schools, not paying for the wealthiest people in the state of Iowa to attend school (applause). Right now in the state of Iowa, the vast majority of the money going into the school vouchers program is to pay the wealthiest people in the state who are already going to write that check for tuition anyway, and even going to hardly feel it, to do what they’re going to do anyway. Why? Our local school districts are telling us, ‘we are struggling, this is hard, we are dealing with rising costs.’ ‘Why are we helping other people who don’t want to participate in public schools do what they were going to do anyways.’ This makes no sense. It hurts our public schools.”
Some other topics covered included inflation and Iowa’s economy. The 100 Town Hall Tour is an opportunity for Sand to hear directly from Iowans about their top concerns and for residents to learn more about his efforts to make government more transparent, to lower costs and improve quality of life across the state.
More from the Sand Q&A below;
