Cleaning up the Office
Upon taking office, Rebecca faced a number of issues that she has been cleaning up for four years. This is a status report.
Data Security
In 2006, under former State Auditor Pat Anderson, several computer laptops were stolen that contained sensitive nonpublic data - including Minnesotans' names and social security numbers. This theft occured after Anderson took no steps in response to a similar theft a month earlier.
In 2010, a Legislative Aditor's report showed Anderson was central to yet another security breach that revealed even more nonpublic data, including more social security numbers, while she was commissioner of the Department of Employee Relations.
Rebecca has made several firm and common sense changes to protect Minnesotans’ private data. She had a security system installed, and ordered stronger security measures and encryption of data on computers in the Office. She also put policies and procedures in place for the safe handling of Minnesotans’ nonpublic data.
Staff cuts
Former State Auditor Pat Anderson cut the office staff significantly before she was in office long enough to understand where to cut and whether it protected the taxpayers' best interest or not. The result was inefficiency and the loss of well-seasoned auditors and the middle staff who were critical to retain, as they were going to be the future leaders of the Office when retirements began to occur. Morale was low. Finally, shortly before Anderson left office, a whole division was gutted.
Rebecca spent 4 years cleaning up the mess. This included improving staff morale, improving staff retention, doing succession planning, rebuilding a whole division, and restructuring a division to help with the increased workload and retirements at the top.
New national auditing standards
New risk-based national auditing standards went into place as State Auditor Otto took Office. These new standards greatly increased the work that auditors have to perform in the Office of the State Auditor, as well as auditors around the country. It also increased the amount of work that local governments had to perform in order to prepare for an audit. Anderson's short-sighted cuts to the Office made it more difficult to complete the major increase in workload, especially since the Office lost many seasoned veterans.
Rebecca responded by introducing several innovations and efficiencies that improved productivity. These included a much-improved web site that reduced the number of calls coming into the Office so staff could focus on their work. Web-based meetings and trainings have reduced windshield time and costs for staff, and for local government staff as well. Rebecca’s outreach and training(pdf) for local officials around the new auditing standards has helped them work to actively reduce their audit costs when possible, and get a more timely audit.
Broken relationships
Anderson’s grandstanding at the expense of local officials to get a headline eroded any trust that existed between them and the Office of the State Auditor. They did not want to call the office with legitimate questions for fear Anderson would unfairly use them for a headline for her political gain.
Rebecca Otto has worked hard to regain that trust with local officials, and now they call the Office with questions so they get things right in the first place. However, if someone misuses public funds, Rebecca Otto is tough, and people have been sentenced to time. The result is that Otto is respected as a friendly, fair and firm leader.
Inefficient
Anderson was reactive with local officials when she was State Auditor, constantly lambasting them for problems after the fact.
Rebecca has been proactive to help local officials get it right in the first place when spending taxpayer dollars rather just catching them doing the wrong thing. Otto developed educational materials to help local officials in a variety of areas that she saw problems in, and has conducted very targeted trainings to reduce recurrent problems. The result of these and many other steps add up to far more efficient government. While Anderson was out grandstanding about how government was simply bad, Rebecca had her nose to the grindstone to make it better. Because of the many efficiencies Otto implemented, she has been able to do nearly three times as many investigations as Anderson did in her entire 4 years.
Activist, Partisan reports
Anderson appointed current Republican Party chair Tony Sutton as her Deputy State Auditor in charge of reports and paid him $85,000 a year at the same time that he was being paid $42,000 a year as secretary/treasurer of the Republican party. The reports that Anderson and Sutton issued were full of judgmental, activist, partisan language that pushed a particular agenda. This is what Pat Anderson means when she calls herself an "active" State Auditor.
Comparing those reports to current ones shows that Rebecca has worked to remove all the activist partisan language from official reports of the Office of the State Auditor. The reports use neutral language that is deemed fair and nonjudgmental by a team of individuals, so they present a clear and accurate picture of what is really going on in the $20 billion in finances she oversees annually. This quality is one of the many reasons Rebecca is nationally respected as a leader by people of both parties, and has been elected to lead the National State Auditors association by her nonpartisan peers.
Summary
This race in November is very clear. We can go backwards with Pat Anderson’s hundreds of millions of dollars in a consistent pattern of errors before and after she served, and an activist, partisan grandstander who simply says that government is bad. Or we can go forwards with Rebecca Otto and continue to make government more efficient, save taxpayer money, and make Minnesota a national leader again.