A special investigation conducted by the State Auditor’s Office has identified questionable transactions totalling $122,000 that were handled by the former head of a chamber of commerce in northeast Iowa.
Brandie Tomkins was hired in October of 2020 to be director of the Guttenberg Chamber of Commerce. Two years later the chamber entered into an agreement that made Tomkins an employee of the chamber and the City of Guttenberg. During a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, State Auditor Rob Sand said officials from the chamber of commerce and the City of Guttenberg asked for the review after Tomkins resigned from the job two years ago. “Chamber officials began reviewing financial records and discovered what they called ‘a mess,'” Sand said. “Many dispersements issued to her without documentation, missing time sheets for her, missing receipts for items that she had purchased and no evidence that cash collected at chamber events had actually ever been deposited.”
Auditors identified about $30,000 in cash withdrawals and about $51,000 in pay to Tomkins that wasn’t properly documented. “There’s also $10,000 in unsupported payments to chamber vendors and 32 reimbursement checks to herself totalling over $9000 that we could not support through receipts or other documentation,” Sand said.
Auditors found a $50 DraftKings purchase on the chamber’s debit card. According to the report from the State Auditor’s Office, Tomkins told auditors she doesn’t have a DraftKings account “and wouldn’t know how to use it.” Tomkins said she left all documentation for the chamber’s finances in the chamber office when she resigned. A chamber board member and their spouse told auditors “some records” were left behind, but they can’t be sure what was for the chamber and what was personal.