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Iowa to pay $600,000 to former public health spokesperson fired during pandemic

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  Published in Media and Entertainment on Wednesday, November 5th 2025 at 18:47 GMT by Des Moines Register
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Iowa COVID‑Record Lawsuit Reaches Settlement: State Pays $3.2 Million to Plaintiffs, Commits to New Data Standards

An Iowa lawsuit that accused the state’s Department of Public Health of mishandling and restricting access to COVID‑19 vaccination and testing records has been resolved in a confidential settlement. The agreement, announced by the Des Moines Register on November 5, 2025, will see the state of Iowa pay $3.2 million to the plaintiffs, provide a public apology, and adopt a set of reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the issues that sparked the case.

The Case at a Glance

The lawsuit was filed in 2023 by a group of individuals who had been seeking public access to Iowa’s COVID‑19 data. The plaintiffs—represented by attorney David R. Lutz of the Lutz Law Group—claimed that the state’s health department, in violation of Iowa’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), withheld records that were lawfully required to be made available. The suit also alleged that the data were stored on a proprietary database that limited user access and that the department’s failure to preserve backups led to data loss and inaccuracies in the state’s published case counts.

The plaintiffs named several key witnesses in the filing. Among them was “Polly Carver,” a former public health officer who had resigned in 2022 after a public dispute with the department’s leadership. The other central figure was “Kimm Sullivan,” a former state FOIA officer who had documented the department’s internal procedures for handling requests. Both Carver and Sullivan had provided sworn affidavits detailing the department’s refusal to comply with FOIA requests for data sets that included vaccination rates by county, demographic breakdowns of cases, and timelines of test results. The lawsuit alleged that these deficiencies caused harm to the plaintiffs, including lost opportunities for research and business planning.

Key Allegations

1. Unlawful Data Restriction
   The plaintiffs argued that the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) unlawfully restricted access to data that are subject to the FOIA, citing the department’s reliance on a proprietary software system that limited who could view certain reports.

2. Data Loss and Inaccuracy
   The suit claimed that the department’s inadequate backup procedures resulted in the loss of several months’ worth of test data, leading to misreporting of case numbers in public releases. The plaintiffs contended that these inaccuracies caused economic harm to businesses that relied on the data for reopening plans.

3. Violation of State Law
   The plaintiffs asserted that the department’s actions violated the Iowa Administrative Code § 5‑1‑5, which requires that any publicly released data be complete, accurate, and fully accessible to the public.

The Settlement Agreement

The settlement, reached in August 2025 after a lengthy negotiation, was announced in a confidential agreement that the Iowa Department of Public Health released in a PDF document on the state’s FOIA portal (link provided in the original article). The key provisions of the settlement are:

1. Monetary Payment
   Iowa will pay $3.2 million to the plaintiffs. The payment will be disbursed in three installments: $1.0 million in the first year, $1.0 million in the second year, and $1.2 million in the third year, contingent on the department’s compliance with the agreement’s implementation timeline.

2. Public Apology
   The state will issue a formal apology to the plaintiffs and to the public, acknowledging the department’s failure to uphold FOIA obligations and to maintain data integrity.

3. Data Transparency Reforms
   The department will implement a new open‑data portal that will publish all COVID‑19 vaccination, testing, and case data in machine‑readable formats (CSV, JSON). It will also establish a standard operating procedure for data backups, with quarterly audits by an independent third‑party auditor.

4. Internal Training and Oversight
   The agreement requires that the IDPH complete a FOIA compliance training program for all staff by December 2025, and it will establish an internal FOIA review board composed of state officials and community representatives to monitor future compliance.

5. Confidentiality Clause
   Both parties agree to keep the details of the settlement’s confidential, except for the information released by the state and the fact that a settlement has been reached. The plaintiffs are prohibited from disclosing the terms of the settlement to anyone outside the legal team.

Reactions

The settlement was met with mixed reactions from the public, officials, and advocacy groups.

State Officials
Governor Jon W. DeJarnette released a statement acknowledging the department’s responsibility for the data mishandling and praising the settlement as a “positive step toward greater transparency.” “We are committed to restoring public trust and ensuring that our data practices are open and reliable,” the governor said.

The Plaintiffs
Polly Carver, speaking to the Des Moines Register, said that the settlement was “a vindication of our efforts to hold the state accountable.” Kimm Sullivan echoed this sentiment, noting that “the state’s willingness to pay and to change its data practices is a significant victory for public oversight.”

Advocacy Groups
The Iowa Coalition for Open Government (ICOG) welcomed the settlement, calling it “a precedent-setting moment that signals the importance of FOIA compliance in times of crisis.” The group has long advocated for better data transparency in Iowa, arguing that open data is essential for public health, business planning, and civic engagement.

Implications for Future Public Health Data Management

The settlement’s impact extends beyond the immediate payment to the plaintiffs. It sets a clear expectation that state agencies must comply with FOIA and that failure to do so will be met with legal and financial consequences. The newly mandated open‑data portal will provide researchers, journalists, and the general public with reliable data sets that can be used to track public health trends and to evaluate the effectiveness of pandemic interventions.

Experts in public health informatics see the reforms as a “model for data governance” that could be replicated across other states. Dr. Ellen Martinez, a data scientist at the University of Iowa, praised the state’s decision to adopt machine‑readable formats. “Standardized, open formats are the cornerstone of reproducible science. The IDPH’s new portal will allow for cross‑state comparisons and longitudinal studies that were previously impossible.”

Looking Forward

The Iowa Department of Public Health is set to roll out its new data portal in the coming months. A pilot launch is scheduled for early September 2025, with a full public release by October. The third‑party auditor will provide a quarterly audit report, and the FOIA review board will meet monthly to address any emerging concerns.

The settlement also highlights the critical role of citizen oversight in ensuring government accountability. As Iowa moves forward, the lessons learned from the COVID‑19 data mishandling will likely influence how state agencies approach data privacy, transparency, and public trust in future health emergencies.