It’s hard to believe the state convention is only a week away. I’ve been an active player in Republican Politics for over two decades, and I’ve never seen such dedication and enthusiasm for a convention as I have this year. Thank you for your passion and involvement in what is perhaps the most important election in a generation. All Minnesota state offices are up for grabs, redistricting looms on the horizon and the relationships between the federal and state governments – and state government and local governments – have never been more divisive.

While some people see these as problems to be solved, I see them as opportunities to be exploited. We have the opportunity to make historic changes in the business of government, and the State Auditor will play a vital role in those changes.

Our current State Auditor has proven she is not up to the job. Instead of exercising the independence of her office to be a positive force in government, she simply snipes from the sidelines, using her office to push the “tax the rich” philosophy of the DFL. Meanwhile the relationship between state and local governments continues to be one of confrontation rather than cooperation.

We need a State Auditor who will not only bring fiscal sanity to Minnesota, but who can make the structural changes in government necessary for economic stability. I put many of those structural changes in place during my first term as State Auditor, and although they have sat dormant the past four years, those structures are still there, waiting for the return of an active problem-solver and fiscal watchdog.

The State Auditor must have many skills, but none more important than executive ability. The ability to direct investigative, oversight and audit functions while managing a large department requires a variety of skills.

During my first term, I renegotiated the department’s lease to save money, shut down several offices by consolidating audit staff at centralized locations to save taxpayer dollars and promote greater efficiency and cut the State Auditor’s budget by 15 percent my first year in office.

My office completed several “first of its kind” special studies on local government aid and its effect on city expenditures, school superintendent compensation, municipal enterprise funds and revenues, the huge “hidden” costs of promised retire health care benefits which were hidden from public budgets, and expenditures and debt of Minnesota’s school districts. All of those reports resulted in legislation to make government more efficient – a good start, but not enough.

As your State Auditor I will resurrect, revive and extend those studies to work toward the structural changes necessary to make government more efficient at those things it is obligated to do and remove it from those areas of our lives where it has no authority to be.

Considered the “Pension Expert” for the State of Minnesota during my first term as state auditor, I released a report on public pensions, detailing the rapid fall of funds and advocated major changes in pension laws. I led the effort to cap state pension increases, merge and eliminate the stand-alone failing Minneapolis Teachers Pension Fund, and stop large benefit increases from other stand-alone funds. In addition, we revealed the Minneapolis Police and Fire funds overpayment of benefits and were a main party to the successful lawsuit between the City of Minneapolis and these funds saving Minneapolis taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

Before my tenure, the Auditor’s Office mainly audited counties and did very little with other local units of government. I had state law changed to allow the Auditor’s Office to privatize audits and released a significant number of government entities to the private sector, enabling the State Auditor’s Office to expand its fiscal oversight. The current State Auditor has not expanded on that program.

I was an active watchdog for the taxpayers. We did numerous investigations of government, including many which ultimately resulted in prison time for the perpetrators.

This is my record. It’s a record of being perhaps the most active auditor ever. And given the disrepair the office has fallen into under DFL control, we need an active auditor in this role again.

We have more reform needed in the pension arena. Our three major funds are close to $15 billion in the hole. In addition to those three funds (PERA, TRA and MSRS), we have five other local funds, several which are close to bankruptcy. Those five funds are Minneapolis Police, Minneapolis Fire, the Minneapolis City Employee Fund (MERF), Duluth Teachers and Saint Paul Teachers. All three Minneapolis funds are “closed” funds, which means they have had no new employees in these funds in over 20 years. They are closing down but because of the extent of overpayment of benefits and lack of contributions, they will not have enough money to pay promised pension benefits. Saint Paul Teachers Fund is also in huge trouble. These issues have to be dealt with by the legislature and State Auditor. All of this information is compiled on a yearly basis by the Auditor’s office. It’s there but the current State Auditor has no desire to make the numbers known to the public since she is heavily supported by the government employee unions. The number is $15 billion and climbing.

LGA is now a warped issue. We need to rewrite LGA legislation which makes sense. The state has too many mandates on cities and counties. The State needs to give more freedom to local governments to make decisions in the best interests of their citizens. Among many other things, we need to continue to privatize the audit function of the office, take an in-depth look at JOBZ legislation, school district expenditures and the true cost of social services in Minnesota. There’s a lot to do.

I ask for your support next week so we can continue where we left off three years ago. I pledge to be an active fiscal watchdog over government, exposing problems and presenting solutions.

Thanks for your support –

Pat