The Incumbent Auditor, Rebecca Otto has been an inactive auditor, doing the bare minimum while in office.  Meanwhile, she has tried to obscure this with a film of lies and deceptions, frequently riddled with errors.  Sound familiar?

Otto tries to take credit for Pat Anderson’s accomplishments

Otto’s Claim: In an interview with the Brainerd Dispatch published Tuesday, July 27, 2010, Otto claimed to chair a group bringing people from across the state to work on firefighter statutes which had not been updated since the 1970s.

http://www.brainerddispatch.com/stories/072710/ele_20100727019.shtml

Truth: Pat Anderson started the Volunteer Fire Relief Association Working Group in 2004 for the exact purpose Otto claimed above.  This group finished the first comprehensive review since the 1970s of rules and regulations for volunteer fire companies and culminated in the passage of legislation implementing those recommendations in both 2005 and 2006 which essentially rewrote the fire relief code.  Under her tenure, Otto has simply continued the group, working on any new issues which have been raised since that time.

http://www.osa.state.mn.us/default.aspx?page=reliefworkinggroup

Otto fabricates a story to cover up frivolous spending of taxpayers money

Otto’s Claim: Otto and her Deputy attended numerous expensive conferences for which she billed the state while auditor because she is required by law to do so as part of her involvement with PERA.

Truth: No auditor has ever been required by law to attend any such conferences.  Further, PERA holds continuing education sessions at meetings in order that the 12 PERA Board Trustees (Otto is one of 12) remain up to date in relevant topic areas and thus meet their fiduciary requirements.  These continuing education sessions are prepared and presented by professional staff at virtually no additional cost to the taxpayers.  Out-of-state conferences are optional.  Most PERA trustees do not attend many, if any, of these conferences and they certainly do not take their staff which only serves to double the cost.

Otto continues to intentionally mislead the public about Anderson’s record despite being corrected many times

Otto’s Claim: Anderson made hundreds of millions of dollars in financial errors.

Truth: When pressed for details, Otto points to a report compiled by the state auditor’s office under Anderson.  The report and specifically the numbers in question are self reported numbers that are compiled by the government information division of the state auditor’s office.  In this particular case, the Department of Education provided data to be included in the larger school district spending report.  Those data are not produced by or in any other way certified by the state auditor – they exist as self reported data so people looking through the report can see what numbers the Department of Education provides on certain topics.

The State Auditor’s office does hundreds of similar spending reports.  These are not audits, are not certified and are simply created as information for the public and other government entities.  Each report is hundreds of pages long, filled with tables of numbers.  Those reports have been done for years under many state auditor’s and have been amended/corrected in the past under each auditor including Carlson, Dutcher, Anderson and likely now Otto.  To say Anderson made hundreds of millions of dollars in financial errors is untrue at best, and a deceptive lie at worse.

With no record to run on and desperate to distract from this, Incumbent Auditor Otto has dug herself into a hypocritical hole

Otto’s Claim: Referring to two separate standard data practices requests, one filed by a student journalist from the University of Minnesota and one filed by the Republican Party of Minnesota, Otto said, “I think it’s really an abuse of the law, and an incredible waste of taxpayer money,” said Otto.  “The intent of the law is to provide the public and media with transparency, and I’m all for that….”

Hypocrisy: In the days prior to her making that inflammatory statement, the DFL made a similar request for information on Anderson.  Yet, this drew no crocodile tears over the “incredible waste of taxpayer money”.  The reason this has not been public is because Otto and the DFL found no “scandal” in the six years of expense reimbursements listed for Anderson.  In fact, they found significantly less out of state travel, cheaper hotel rooms and almost no billing for meals.  In six years – double the time of Otto’s expenses.

With no good response to the accusation she spent money on lobster dinner and other lavish meals, Otto attacks her accuser by misstating the dollar amounts and tries to imply she gets a per-diem.

Otto’s Claim: The Republican Party got their math wrong when pointing out her lavish spending on lobster dinners and expensive hotel rooms.

Truth: She misstated – either intentionally or incompetently – the amounts being discussed.  She stated that she would be entitled to $31 or $42 (she never explains which amount she asserts is correct) combined for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  This is true if, and only if, no meals were already paid for by the state as part of the conference.  In the case of her November 10, 2008 lobster dinner – the State of Minnesota already paid for that meal as part of the conference registration fees.

Otto deletes Anderson’s investigations off public website and completely misstates her record.

Otto’s Claim: Otto claims she has done three times more investigations than Anderson.  She claims Anderson only performed 10 special investigations while in office.

http://www.rebeccaotto.com/news20100314.html

Truth: Anderson performed hundreds of special investigations, many of them very high-profile.  Otto concocted this latest claim by deleting all but 10 special investigations during the years 2003-2006 from the public website and then completely disregards all the rest of the work done during Anderson’s term.  Requests have been made of the Auditor’s office on the exact numbers of investigations during each year from 2003-2010.  Those numbers will be sent to the media when the State Auditor’s office releases them.

In 2003, Otto won a special legislative election in district 52A.  Shortly afterwards, she and her husband were indicted by a grand jury for false campaign practices – essentially lying about her opponent Matt Dean.  A year later, Otto was soundly defeated for re-election.  Sound familiar?

“A Washington County grand jury has indicted state Rep. Rebecca Otto, DFL-Marine on St. Croix, and her husband and campaign manager, Shawn Otto, for distributing false campaign material for her special election in February. The offenses are gross misdemeanors.  The indictment, made public on Monday by Washington County Attorney Doug Johnson, charged the Ottos with falsely alleging in a piece of campaign literature that Rep. Otto’s Republican opponent, Matt Dean of Dellwood, ‘put his own children in private school.’ In fact, one of Dean’s children was attending a public school and a second child was enrolled to start kindergarten this fall.”  (Bill Salisbury, “Grand Jury indicts lawmaker”, Pioneer Press, August 12, 2003)

“Rep. Rebecca Otto, DFL-Marine on St. Croix, and her husband, Shawn, have been indicted on a rare charge of issuing false political campaign material before her special election victory in February.  Otto joins Rep. Dick Borrell, R-Waverly, also under indictment for the same offense.  A complaint from House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, spurred a Washington County grand jury investigation that led to the gross misdemeanor charges filed Thursday against the Ottos. They allegedly published campaign literature falsely claiming that Republican candidate Matt Dean had ‘put his own children in private school.’”  (Conrad deFiebre, “2nd legislator charged with false claims”, Star Tribune, August 12, 2003)

Incumbent Auditor Rebecca Otto Attempts to Take Credit for Pat Anderson’s Accomplishments

The next installment in a long history of Rebecca Otto playing fast and loose with the truth has arrived.  Incumbent Auditor Rebecca Otto’s latest deception in a disturbing pattern of behavior is taken to a new extreme – she is trying to take credit for something she had nothing to do with.

Saint Paul - In an interview with the Brainerd Dispatch published Tuesday, July 27, 2010, Otto claimed to chair a group bringing people from across the state to work on firefighter statutes which had not been updated since the 1970s.

http://www.brainerddispatch.com/stories/072710/ele_20100727019.shtml

After contacting the reporter who filed this story to confirm that Rebecca Otto made these claims, Pat Anderson said, “It’s almost laughable if it wasn’t so dishonest.  So far the biggest accomplishment she’s laying claim to is actually something I envisioned, started and accomplished back in 2004-2006.”

After realizing the statutes governing volunteer fire relief associations were sorely out-of-date, Pat Anderson created the Volunteer Fire Relief Association Working Group in the fall of 2004 to bring together all interested parties including legislative pension staff, fire relief members and city finance officials to completely re-write the statutes governing fire relief funds.  This group finished the first comprehensive review since the 1970s of rules and regulations for volunteer fire associations and culminated in the passage of legislation implementing those recommendations in both the 2005 and 2006 sessions which essentially rewrote the fire relief code.

“Under her tenure, Otto has simply continued the group, working on any new issues which have arisen since that time,” said Anderson.    “I’m glad she has continued the group I started, but the heavy lifting and re-write were done years ago under my tenure,” Anderson continued.

“This is just the latest in a long string of mistruths, lies and deception,” said Anderson.  “The auditor should be unimpeachable, the elected official with the highest moral standing and integrity.  The auditor should be the last person spending time misleading the public or trying to steal credit for the accomplishments of others,” said Pat Anderson.

Last week, Otto erroneously claimed she was required by state law to travel extensively to expensive conferences with her Deputy, billing the costs of $400/night hotel rooms and lobster dinners to state taxpayers.

“Unfortunately, the public is convinced that politicians lie, and Otto’s words and actions feed right into this perception,” said Anderson.   “If the public can’t trust the State Auditor who is charged with keeping government honest and accountable, who can they trust?”

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“Otto was also asked if she was required to stay in these expensive hotels and she did not answer the question.  Instead she said it was a ‘package’ deal and we needed to ask PERA.  I can answer that question for her.  The answer is NO,” said Anderson.

“The office of state auditor is supposed to provide critical fiscal security for Minnesota taxpayers.  This is about ethics and performance not about person gain or party politics.  This is about simply understanding what the role of state auditor is.  It’s to be the taxpayers’ watchdog, to make sure taxpayer’ money is being spent properly and people are getting the most they can out of government for the money they put in.  As auditor I will be able to look government officials in the eye and tell them to do not just as I say, but do as I do.  I lead by example and I am open and crystal clear about the way I run an office.  And I would never lie to the public,” Anderson concluded.

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I am shocked at both the magnitude of these expenses and their efforts to conceal and justify this lavish spending.  Excessive travel, expensive hotels and fancy dinners are not essential government services.

The maximum reimbursement for any dinner meal is $20.00.  Otto and her Deputy created a convoluted spreadsheet filled with errors to attempt to justify being reimbursed for excessive meal costs.  Also, according to the records provided by the Auditor’s office, they were reimbursed over the maximum allowed several times on their trips.  At each of these conferences, food was included with the conference fee and meals were served.  State law makes the attendee ineligible for separate meal reimbursement.

During this same time, both the executive branch under Governor Pawlenty and the legislative branch under the DFL Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, issued an out-of-state travel ban.  As an independent constitutional office, Otto was not legally bound by these travel bans.  Instead, she ignored the austerity measures the rest of the state was imposing all around her and arrogantly took advantage of out-of-state travel at a time when the state was, and still is, broke.

Otto’s response was that she was “required” to attend these conferences and stay in these hotels.  That is patently false.  There is no requirement to attend conferences by any of the pension fund boards and in fact, most trustees do not attend many, if any, conferences.  And they certainly do not take their staff members to these conferences which only serves to double the costs.  I urge the public to contact PERA (Public Employees Retirement Association) to confirm she is lying about being required to attend conferences.

It’s an insult to the intelligence of Minnesotans to think she is “required” to attend numerous out-of-state conferences during a public employee travel ban, consistently stay at $400 per night hotels and is “required” to eat lobster dinners to do her job.

When the top two people in charge of investigating waste, fraud and abuse are defrauding and abusing the system themselves, we have a real problem.

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