Grading the States introduction THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT Report Card: Minnesota GOVERNOR Jesse Ventura (Independence Party, elected 1998) LEGISLATURE House — 69 Republicans, 65 Democrats Senate — 39 Democrats, 27 Republicans, 1 independent FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: A- The governorship, the Senate and the House are each held by a different political party in Minnesota, so consensus is in relatively short supply. When the state faced a stalemate over what to do with its surplus, leaders split the extra cash three ways and allowed each legislative chamber and the governor to control an equal share of the money. (Sort of like King Solomon, if he had cut the baby in thirds). It’s at a time like this that institutionalized management systems become most important, and that is where Minnesota shines. It pays close attention to its structural balance, engages in well-publicized long-term planning, undertakes solid financial reporting, and has good debt-management and investment policies. Revenue estimates have been extremely conservative here, with income tax flowing in much faster than anticipated year after year. While it’s far better to have those estimates too high than the other way around, it does lead to complaints that fiscal planners deliberately err on the conservative side. CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: B+ Minnesota goes to extensive lengths to evaluate the condition of its capital assets. A few years ago, the legislative auditor estimated deferred maintenance to be in the $300 million to $600 million range. That sounded like an alarming amount of money, but at least the state had some idea where it stood. The most recent estimate of deferred maintenance, which includes bringing facilities up to current code, is in the $1.5 billion range. Except for that backlog, Minnesota is strong in capital management. It has one of the strongest executive planning processes in the country. Agencies submit six-year capital plans to the department of finance. Their requests explain the project need, the scope and scheduling information. Projects are evaluated through a detailed scoring system before they’re approved. Agencies with similar interests are encouraged to develop joint plans. Once under way, facilities and roads projects are well monitored and evaluated, and most come in on time and on budget. HUMAN RESOURCES: C+ Hiring systems are in transition in Minnesota. Managers are still dependent on a lot of paper, sending out printed job bulletins and transmitting applications by mail. But the state is moving toward better use of automation and new employee-selection techniques. Many agencies have done their own work-force planning, but more centralized effort is needed. That isn’t easy in Minnesota, where agencies’ insistence on autonomy can hamper statewide management efforts. Agency independence also is an issue in recruiting: It’s not unusual for various agencies and the central personnel office to discover that they’ve all signed up for the same job fair, and are, in effect, competing with one another. Training is good and there are interesting experiments at measuring and rewarding performance. “We call ourselves the land of 10,000 pilots,” says Ann Schluter, of the Department of Employee Relations. MANAGING FOR RESULTS: B The Ventura administration has issued what it calls The Big Plan (which somehow sounds appropriate for Ventura). The Plan is made up of 29 initiatives grouped around four key components: healthy vital communities; self-sufficient people; service not systems; and Minnesota as a world competitor. The administration used hundreds of citizen advisory groups to help shape the document. The Big Plan sets direction for individual department plans, now required for the first time in Minnesota government. More than in many other states, these agency plans are clearly tied into the entity-wide effort. If they don’t fit, they get rewritten. The Department of Revenue, for example, spent some of last fall revising its plan to better reflect the governor’s initiatives. The old short-term agency performance reports, meanwhile, have been eliminated. In their place, departments now must submit performance information in their biennial budgets, as well as in support of their long-term strategic plans. The measures in the Big Plan itself are specific and detailed, but they don’t offer specific performance targets. In sum, strategic planning in Minnesota is being done at a very high level, and performance measures are being developed and used by departments. Whether the legislature will make effective use of them is still very much in question. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: B Agencies in Minnesota have a plethora of IT systems to help them deliver services. There are customized systems for fleet management, agricultural licensing, corrections and nursing home management. Nearly 3,000 social workers, case aides and human services staffers use IT to track cases involving more than 260,000 persons annually. County social service workers automate routine manual tasks and use department systems to determine client needs and generate information relatively quickly. The entity-wide systems here are in similarly good shape, and deliver information to agency managers in a timely way through a data warehouse that incorporates all accounting, human resources and payroll data. But while the state provides much information online, it’s not a national leader in electronic transactions. “Mostly, we don’t have the support from the legislature that we need,” says Debra Bean, the state’s director of emerging technologies. “The legislature has not made that move to understand that technology is expensive and it’s a new way of doing business.” Unfortunately, even if the money becomes available, the state’s procurement process is very slow. The IT personnel move quickly, but the legal and procurement people tend to nitpick every word in a contract, getting overly involved in the actual technology decisions. AVERAGE GRADE: B Copyright © 2001, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc.