If the Minnesota governor’s office is not paying attention to the little things, it’s easy to understand how the big things could go so seriously awry.
Over in that other Washington publication, I look at the multiplying fraud scandals in the Minnesota state government, and how whatever slim hopes Tim Walz had of being the 2028 presidential nominee, they’re toast. In fact, he’s not even necessarily a safe bet in his bid for a third term.
But I want to look at one aspect of Walz’s mismanagement that I only mentioned in passing in the column.
Back in November, Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor released the results of its audit of the offices of Governor Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, covering the period from July 1, 2022, through December 31, 2024. The audit found the offices “generally did not comply with the criteria we tested. We identified a significant number of instances of noncompliance and internal control deficiencies related to receipts, inventory, and payroll and nonpayroll expenditures.”
Now, I can hear somebody out there complaining, “Oh, who cares about keeping track of receipts, timesheets, holiday, leave payments, inventory, inaccurate reimbursements to employees and payments to vendors, and purchasing cards?”
But the thing is, if you’re a governor, one of the few things you can absolutely control is how your own office operates. To put it in terms Walz would appreciate, this is the basic blocking and tackling of management. And judging from the OLA report, Walz’s office was slipshod and could barely block, tackle, or tie its own shoelaces.
- “The office did not collect $12,448 for seven events held at the governor’s residence between August 2022 and January 2023. The office was unaware that it had not collected the amounts it was owed.”
- “The office did not maintain documentation supporting the amounts it billed or deposited.”
- “We found that employees in two departments within the office frequently did not complete their own timesheets. Employees in one department did not complete their own timesheets during 14 of the 16 pay periods we tested. Employees in the second department did not complete their own timesheets during 7 of the 16 pay periods tested.”
- “We found that the Governor’s Office did not approve the employee’s timesheets for any of the 64 pay periods we reviewed, even though the employee reported directly to Governor’s Office staff.”
- “The office overpaid retroactive pay rate adjustments for seven employees by a total of $6,711.”
- “For 21 of 24 payroll adjustments and 2 of 15 leave balance adjustments, the office did not document the adjustments it made, the reason it made the adjustments, and supervisory approval for the adjustments, as required by state policy.”
Life is going to throw a whole bunch of problems at a state government that it cannot control, like natural disasters and deranged acts of violence and swaths of an immigrant community eager to fleece the state government’s social spending programs for every dime they can get. The one thing that a governor can easily keep an eye on is what his own office is doing on any given day.
Yes, for part of this period, Walz was the Democratic vice presidential nominee and out of the state campaigning, but that just means the day-to-day management of these offices was Lieutenant Governor Flanagan’s responsibility. Keep in mind, Flanagan is currently running for the U.S. Senate.
Making sure that the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s offices are keeping track of money coming in and going out and documenting expenses and adjustments to pay rates . . . man, that is really not the hardest thing a state government has to do. Every other government office in every other state must do this, as well as every private company. This is not a case of unreasonable expectations.
If you’re not paying attention to the little things, it’s easy to understand how the big things could go so seriously awry.
In the end, Walz is a lousy and inattentive manager of state government; this was obvious long before he was selected as Kamala Harris’s running mate. (This is why I figured no rational presidential candidate would choose him. Silly me!)
A certain swath of chattering-class Democrats fell in love with Walz because he went on MSNBC and called Republicans “weird,” and Harris picked him because she got along best with him during the interview process.
Walz is to vice presidential nominees as Rex Grossman is to quarterbacks who started in a Super Bowl. Yes, he qualifies, but years from now, people will wonder how the heck it ever happened.