MINNESOTA STATE AUDITOR REBECCA OTTO
Otto for Auditor Campaign
www.rebeccaotto.com
12697 North 177th Street
Marine on St Croix, MN 55047
Campaign correspondence
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael Gabiou (michael@rebeccaotto.com) (651-353-7060)
6/30/10
Is Republican Politics Going Too Far?
Republicans are on an Expensive Deep-Sea Fishing Expedition on Taxpayer Dime
St. Paul – The Minnesota Republican Party and an aligned group are using Minnesota‟s Public Data
Practices Act to make open ended, burdensome data requests of at least one constitutional office on the
taxpayers‟ dime. The requests ask state staff to sift through mountains of public and non-public data for
anything that could possibly be taken out of context and used to smear Minnesota State Auditor Rebecca
Otto. There have been five data requests so far.
“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. But they want
to read every personal resume that has come through the office? See every document that contains the
word „election?‟ Review every phone call? These requests mean the taxpayer-funded staff has to step
away from their important work of overseeing $20 billion in spending of tax dollars by local
governments, and scan mountains of correspondence for individual words, make photocopies, and redact
anything classed by law as non-public. I understand that the republicans want to win, but this is invasive
past the point of what the taxpayers should have to bear.”
Otto says there are only two reasons why the groups would be making such sweeping data requests. “I
have a nationally respected record, and they want to chisel away at that. Either they are fishing for a tiny
bit of data they might be able to take out of context and spin in some press release or negative campaign
ad, and/or they are just trying to bog the office down to keep us from getting our important oversight
work done. But I am concerned about staff having to stop their very important work and instead go to
work as muckrakers for the Republican Party on the taxpayer dime. I think that‟s wrong.”
A few examples of items the Republican data requests are asking for, all of which have to be hand
reviewed to redact non-public data:
Copies of all calendar items and contacts; and phone log for Rebecca Otto and appointed staff
over the last four years.
Copies of all expense reimbursements, travel expenses, and mileage reimbursements, for
Rebecca Otto and appointed staff over the last four years.
Resumes of all State Auditor staff and contractors hired over the last four years.
List of salaries of each State Auditor staff member.
All records and correspondence pertaining to promotions of individual staff members and salary
increases of individual staff members over the last four years.
Resumes of all student worker applicants and intern applicants who were not accepted for
positions at the Office of the State Auditor over the last four years.
All electronic documents and files residing in, sent from, or received by the Office of the State
Auditor containing the words DFL, Election, Campaign, American Civil Liberties Union, and
other words.
Otto has a long list of accomplishments including the national Excellence in Accountability Award from
her nonpartisan peers in the National State Auditors Association. She has been elected to the executive
committee of the National State Auditors Association and is in line to be it President in 4 years. She
helped form and is Chair of the Collaborative Governance Council, which will work to find more ways
government at all levels can collaborate and find efficiencies. Under her leadership the Office of the
State Auditor is running far more efficiently, and has done three times as many investigations as were
done under former State Auditor Pat Anderson.
In contrast, Anderson has an 8-year history of errors in financial reports, including several of her own
campaign finance reports, as well as major reports from the Office of the State Auditor during her term.
In 2003, Anderson was the first to push for cutting local government aid to cities. She recommended a
cut of 43% and said it wouldn‟t impact property taxes. City property tax revenues have risen by 102%
over the last 10 years.
“The republicans are desperate to find something – anything – to create a smear campaign because I have
worked in a nonpartisan way to make our state a national leader again, and have received national
recognition for it. Anderson has nothing to show but errors and partisan hackery, so they hope they can
find something to bring me down to her level. The problem is the taxpayers are stuck paying for it, and
that‟s wrong.”
The Office of the State Auditor is a constitutional office that is charged with overseeing more than $20
billion spent annually by local governments in Minnesota.
The National State Auditors Association (NSAA) is an organization dedicated to uniting state auditors by
encouraging and providing opportunities for the free exchange of information and ideas between auditors on
the state, federal and local levels. The members of NSAA are the appointed or elected state auditors of the 50
states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. For more information about NSAA, call (859) 276-1147
or visit www.nasact.org.
Rebecca Otto is Minnesota’s 18th State Auditor. A high-resolution official photo is available for download at
http://www.auditor.state.mn.us/images/otto_hires.jpg. To learn more about State Auditor Otto, see
http://www.auditor.state.mn.us/default.aspx?page=bio.
###