The Iowa Department of Human Services is offering to pay for one year of a credit monitoring service for people in Warren County who may’ve had their personal information exposed. DHS spokesman, Roger Munns, says the records may’ve been released in a series of events following the fire that destroyed the agency’s office in Warren County in December of last year.

“Some records were saved, others could not be saved, and they were moved to a Warren County-owned secure location in preparation for shredding. Two months later, unknown to us, or anybody, the maintenance worker for the county made a mistake and hauled some of those damaged records back to the fire-damaged site and dumped them there,” Munns explains.

A neighbor to the building called the state after finding some papers that appeared to be connected to DHS. Munns says they don’t believe there was a lot of information released, but they sent a letter to some 3,000 people as a precaution.

“What was scattering in the wind were individual pages, not complete files…every sheet that we found had a least some bit of information. Maybe that person’s name, maybe a phone number, maybe a Social Security number. So, if there was any good news, that would be it,” according to Munns.

The letter has an 800-number the person can call if they are worried about their information. The DHS office has move to a temporary location and the fire-damaged building was razed. Munns says he is not sure what the plans are for a permanent location for the Warren County office.