DAVENPORT — Former Scott County Auditor Roxanna Moritz overpaid election workers by more than $12,700 in 2020, violating state law, according to a report from State Auditor Rob Sand.

The report detailed an investigation launched in 2021 after the Scott County Board of Supervisors raised concerns about the workers’ pay.

The audit also surveyed 15 other Iowa counties and found election workers had been overpaid in six of them.

For the 2020 primary election, Scott County supervisors set most poll workers’ wage at $10 an hour, with $12 an hour for precinct chairpersons. According to Iowa Code, the county supervisors set the pay for election workers in each county.

But in order to increase workers’ pay to $15 an hour, Moritz’s office inflated the hours that election workers worked and did so without approval from the supervisors. As a result, the payroll system recorded 1,426 more hours than election workers actually worked, according to the audit.

“What happened in Scott County was very problematic,” Sand said in an interview. “To see people getting paid for more time than they worked, just because the auditor felt like it, is totally inappropriate.”

Moritz did not immediately respond to requests for comment. She previously told the Quad-City Times that making the decision without the approval of the county supervisors was a mistake.

She told the auditor’s office she thought increasing the pay rate would prevent precinct officials from quitting, according to the report, and “...

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