TAMA — South Tama County (STC) Superintendent John Cain and his administrative team got a special visit from State Auditor Rob Sand last Friday morning to celebrate the district’s Public Innovations and Efficiencies (PIE) award honoring it as the best performing district of its size in 2025 for implementing various cost and energy-saving measures.

The occasion was marked with the presentation of a ceremonial apple pie from Cozy Pies in Sand’s hometown of Decorah, and Cain returned the favor by gifting the auditor, a known gas station food aficionado, with a special treat of his own, a thin crust sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza from Casey’s. As Sand, a Democrat who has also been busy campaigning for governor on top of his current job, explained, his office keeps a nine or 10-page checklist full of things cities, counties and school districts can do to save tax dollars.

“It’s really just a question of how many of them have you implemented, and then how does that compare to other school districts of your size and of the state?” Sand asked.

Cain credited STC Maintenance Director Steve McAdoo, who was also in attendance, with working to replace a large majority of the district’s lighting — between 80 and 85 percent — with LED lighting.

“Transitioning from the old middle school to the new middle school just brought on all kinds of opportunities, and in the new middle school, the HVAC system is a wonderful energy saver as a whole,” Cain said. “On the checklist, there’s a lot of simple things you can do, and we’ve got all the simple things in place like our printers are set to copy on both sides. We’ve made some steps but we’ve even furthered the steps into ensuring that our lights in our buildings aren’t on in hours when they’re not occupied… They kind of default them to long hours, and we can shift them back like we have in the other buildings. We also have occupancy sensors throughout the district.”

The superintendent added that there are still more steps the district can take to increase efficiency in the future, but they have continued to improve and hope to keep that trajectory in motion.

“This work also aligns with our District strategic plan in the area of priorities. We continually are seeking to enhance and utilize our resources, while making sound decisions through creative funding solutions. I believe that energy efficiency is a great opportunity to save our taxpayers dollars,” Cain said.

According to Sand, LED lights are a huge component of the program because they’re “such a good money saver.” McAdoo laid out some other projects on the horizon including installing LED lighting at a couple of the district’s gymnasiums and upgrading the HVAC systems at the high school building.

As districts all over Iowa continue to face budget cuts and uncertainty around state funding, Cain commented that such measures are especially important.

“As you well know from reading newspaper articles and social media, as a district, we’re looking at every opportunity we can to save money. Steve leads that when it comes to some of our work that we can do in being more efficient. (STC Director of Finance) Katie (Mathern) also is very instrumental in applying for the rebates and making sure that we’re doing all that we can, and the board is really leading the way in ensuring that we’ve got a budget and we need to be fiscally responsible for that budget with every decision that we make. So I feel that as a district and administratively, we’re doing a good job with that. It’s something we have succeeded at, but it’s a continuous improvement. We’re always trying to get better.”

Sand noted that efficiency work is a great way for local governing entities to gain trust with their constituents amidst a seemingly constant stream of stories about waste, fraud and abuse.

“Part of the fun of starting this program is giving us all the reminder that while there is bad in the world, there’s good in the world too. And I think, when people show some effort and get involved in this program and self-improving efficiency, and then, when the local newspaper shows up to tell everyone ‘Hey, they’re doing a good job,’ people can read that story and go ‘Alright, good. Well, we must be doing OK then,'” he said. “And then later on down the road, if it turns out that you may need to bond, you can tell people ‘Hey, we’re doing a good job with efficiency. We’re participating in the efficiency program. In fact, we even won an award, but we’re coming to you because here are the other things that we need to do that we can’t get to doing just by saving money.'”

On that note, the STC bond referendum to renovate the former Iowa Juvenile Home in Toledo and turn it into the new middle school passed easily in 2022 with the support of over 83 percent of voters.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.