State money

Who the state pays

The companies, nonprofits and public bodies Iowa’s state agencies and universities pay the most. Only organizations are named; payments to people are counted but never listed¹.

Payments, not contracts

These are amounts the state actually paid. No state source publishes what its contracts are worth: the state’s list of awarded contracts names the vendor, what they provide and when the contract ends, but no dollar value².

State agencies: companies and nonprofits paid the most

Every payment from executive branch agencies, FY14 through FY26, added up across agencies³. Each name opens what it was paid by year and by agency.

1Des Moines Independent Community Schools$4.36B
2Dept Human Services-Directed Payments$2.09B
3Sioux City Comm Sch Dist$2.01B
4Davenport Comm Sch Dist$1.88B
5Waterloo Comm Sch Dist$1.46B
6Iowa City Comm Sch Dist$1.30B
7Dubuque Comm Sch Dist$1.18B
8Council Bluffs Comm Schl$1.14B
9Ankeny Comm Sch Dist$1.11B
10Waukee Comm Sch Dist$1.05B
11Peterson Contractors Inc$1.02B
12Manatts Inc$828.9M
13Southeast Polk Comm SD$796.6M
14West Des Moines Comm SD$780.9M
15Linn-Mar Comm Sch Dist$764.3M
16Cramer & Assoc Inc$719.4M
17Dept Human Services-Modernization-Reg Fmap-Modernization-Reg FMAP$700.4M
18Johnston Comm Sch Dist$695.4M
19Dept Human Services-Non-Mco Expenditures$648.0M
20Ottumwa Comm Sch Dist$644.6M
21Hawkins Construction Co$627.4M
22C J Moyna & Sons LLC$621.8M
23Grant Wood Area Educatio$620.2M
24Norris Asphalt Paving Co LC$558.3M
25Burlington Comm Sch Dist$534.8M

FY26 only

1Dept Human Services-Directed Payments$2.09B
2Dept Human Services-Non-Mco Expenditures$648.0M
3Des Moines Independent Community Schools$389.1M
4Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services-Medicare Related Payments$362.7M
5Sioux City Comm Sch Dist$185.4M
6Dept Human Services-Hawki Program Expenditures (mco)$177.3M
7Davenport Comm Sch Dist$158.7M
8Waterloo Comm Sch Dist$142.2M
9Peterson Contractors Inc$129.6M
10Waukee Comm Sch Dist$128.1M
11Iowa City Comm Sch Dist$126.3M
12Ankeny Comm Sch Dist$116.1M
13Dept Human Services-Withhold Payments$110.3M
14C J Moyna & Sons LLC$109.7M
15Dubuque Comm Sch Dist$108.8M

Governments and public bodies paid the most

Much state money goes to other governments: aid to counties, cities and schools, and payments between public bodies.

1Cedar Rapids CSD$2.02B
2University of Iowa$1.25B
3Cedar Rapids City of$1.23B
4Des Moines City of$1.09B
5Marshalltown CSD$710.7M
6Polk Co Treasurer$698.5M
7Iowa State University$655.1M
8Area Education Agency 11$631.7M
9Davenport City of$577.3M
10Des Moines Area Community College$572.5M

State universities’ vendor payments

What the University of Iowa, Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa reported paying vendors each fiscal year⁴. The universities keep their own books, so the state checkbook leaves them out.

Show the numbers

Fiscal year	University of Iowa	Iowa State University	University of Northern Iowa
FY26	$58.7M	$54.2M	$72.7M
FY25	$60.1M	$57.7M	$65.8M
FY24	$60.2M	$59.6M	$70.8M
FY23	$61.3M	$63.4M	$70.6M
FY22	$54.2M	$55.5M	$226.7M
FY21	$1.59B	$54.6M	$203.6M
FY20	$1.52B	$58.4M	$216.3M
FY19	$52.7M	$68.9M	$237.1M
FY18	$101.5M	$65.2M	$29.7M
FY17	$53.6M	$57.0M	$31.6M
FY16	$52.3M	$53.6M	$19.6M
FY15	$53.0M	$58.0M	$20.2M
FY14	$51.0M	$46.2M	$20.4M
FY13	$46.3M	$40.6M	$20.0M
FY12	$50.0M	$43.2M	$17.0M

Download these numbers (CSV)

Paid the most in FY26

$185.6M in all; $66.6M (36%) went to people and other payees we don’t name.

1Ebsco Subscription Services UNI, UI$5.2M
2Workday Inc UNI, ISU$3.9M
3Oracle America Incorporated UI$2.6M
4Zlrignition Inc ISU$2.5M
5Elsevier Inc UI, UNI, ISU$2.5M
6Follett Corporation UNI$1.5M
7Dell Computer Corp UNI$1.5M
8Dell Computer Corporation UI$1.4M
9Salesforce.com Inc UI, ISU, UNI$1.2M
10Dell Computer Corp (cybuy) ISU$1.2M
11Govconnection Inc UNI, ISU$1.0M
12City of Ames ISU$1.0M
13Fisher Scientific Co LLC (cybuy) ISU$954K
14City of Cedar Falls UNI$880K
15Board of Regents State of Iowa UNI$877K
16Hawk Jv Landlord Two Ia LLC UI$872K
17Eab Global Inc UNI, ISU$862K
18Adobe Inc UI, ISU$845K
19Iowa State University UNI$812K
20Old Capitol Town Center UI$781K
21Ambioedu LLC UI$781K
22Greater Western Library Alliance ISU$747K
23State of Iowa Board of Regents UI$733K
24State of Iowa Auditors Office UI$731K
25University of Iowa UNI$650K

Paid the most since FY12

Mckesson Corporation$626.6M
Iowa Department of Human Services$133.8M
Depository Trust Co Redemption Acct$96.0M
Ebsco Subscription Services$88.9M
Internal Revenue Service$85.0M
University of Iowa Energy Collaborative$72.9M
Teachers Insurance & Annuity Assn of Amer$67.1M
Sirius Computer Solutions Inc$53.9M
Workday Inc$52.8M
Midamerican Energy Company$48.1M
Ebsco Information Services$47.1M
Wells Fargo Bank NA$41.0M
Mccomas Lacina Construction Company$38.5M
Principal Life Insurance Company$36.6M
Life Technologies Corporation$32.6M
Dell Computer Corporation$32.5M
University of Iowa$32.2M
Medtronic USA Incorporated$30.7M
Russell Construction Co Inc$30.6M
Boston Scientific Corporation$25.2M
Miron Construction Company Inc$24.2M
Iowa State University$23.7M
Oracle America Incorporated$23.6M
Great Western Bank$23.0M
Iowa Dept of Administrative Services$22.3M

Notes

A payee is named only when its name shows it is an organization: a company (Inc, LLC, Corp and the like), a government, a school, a hospital, a church or another institution. Everyone else is added into one unnamed total and their names aren’t kept. When we can’t tell, a payee counts as a person. ↩
The Department of Administrative Services’ awarded contracts search (bidopportunities.iowa.gov) gave an error every time we tried to read it in November 2026, so contracts aren’t on this page yet. ↩
From the state checkbook: payments recorded in the executive branch’s central accounting system, from every fund. It leaves out the Legislature, the courts and the Regents universities, which keep their own books. ↩
From the Board of Regents’ vendor payments by school, year and vendor on the Iowa Data Hub (FY2012 on), which also covers the Iowa School for the Deaf and the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School. The schools haven’t reported the same way every year: the University of Iowa’s FY2020 and FY2021 reports include about $1.5 billion a year more than other years, and the University of Northern Iowa’s FY2019–FY2022 reports are about three times its other years. Compare years with care. ↩

Sources: State of Iowa Executive Branch Checkbook on the Iowa Data Hub: the full ledger (dataset 1021) and its yearly files, and the last 90 days (1076); Iowa Board of Regents’ vendor payments by institution, fiscal year and vendor, Iowa Data Hub dataset 990.