Doubts aren’t new, but these accountability laws are

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

I grew increasingly alarmed listening to the testimony of Judy Randall.

Randall was explaining to the members of the Legislative Audit Commission how the state of Minnesota had failed to properly oversee some $4.7 billion paid to nonprofits the previous year, including $1 billion the state or counties had handed out in the form of grants.

“How do they know there’s no fraud?” I asked Randall.

This was not recent.

The year was 2007. Randall, now the legislative auditor, was then a staffer. And the governor whose administration was getting called on the carpet was Tim Pawlenty.

Asking tough questions of governors and their departments is nothing new and is a core function of the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA). I respect the role of the OLA and the press as independent agents analyzing the work of government. That’s why I feel compelled to speak out against recent distortions and misrepresentations by some which suggest Minnesota has a “fraud” problem.

The accusation is exciting. Accountability efforts, meanwhile, do not usually make the top of the story. A reader of one Star Tribune story on the subject (“Walz faulted on fraud prevention efforts,” July 14) would have to get through 20 paragraphs to learn about the creation of an inspector general in the Department of Education, a role specifically empowered with subpoena privilege to prevent another Feeding Our Future scandal.

And that’s only the beginning. Since 2023, the DFL majorities and the governor have acted in dozens of ways to increase transparency and accountability in the spending of public money.

Chief among them was 10 pages of new law and funding for the Office of Grants Management, including the following:

• Requiring public information on the “timeliness, quality, and overall performance” of grants.

• Stronger viability standards and additional oversight, up to potential postponement or revocation.

• Commissioners may unilaterally terminate any grant they determine not in the best interests of the state.

• Three new full-time employees in the Office of Grants Management in the Department of Administration.

• A first-of-its-kind study to build a grants management system that will be used across executive agencies.

There’s more.

The Metropolitan Council Governance Task Force will study reform, accountability and transparency for that powerful and oft-troubled agency.

We will require nursing facility owners and operators to report related-party transactions to ensure public funds are improving facilities and care, and not for undue profits. Financially distressed nursing home funding ($100 million) and long-term care workforce incentive grants ($94 million) are subject to direct audit and recovery.

These and other safeguards, which were regularly opposed by Republicans, were enacted and funded well before recent OLA reports and news stories. Because of their passage and enactment, all future Minnesota budgets will be safer and better protected from corruption. Acts of good government don’t often get credit from our critics or coverage in the press.

The attempt to tie the word “fraud” to the Minnesota government is misguided at best. These acts were committed by private citizens, criminals who exploited programs, and who have and will continue to face consequences including prosecutions and convictions.

The loudest voices have selective memory: When individuals unduly took tens of billions from U.S. taxpayers in COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, I do not recall these same critics alleging a culture of corruption in the Trump administration — or among business owners who profited.

Theft of public resources is already illegal, and we can never prevent the desire by some bad actors to make an illicit gain. What we can do is catch it and learn from it. And we have.

Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, is a member of the Minnesota Senate.