It started in February.
Reformer Reporter Deena Winter asked a spokesperson for the state Department of Human Services if she could check to see if any businesses had contracts with the agency.
Go ahead and send it in, DHS spokesman Spenser Bickett told him.
“We’ll see what we can find out for you,” he wrote in an email.
Eight months later, she is still waiting for a response, despite repeated promises that they are “working on it.”
We have a open records law in Minnesota, which requires public entities to turn over public records, upon request, with certain exceptions. But as we approach the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, it’s clear the law could use some work.
For starters, the law is vague about the government’s obligation to act quickly. Other states impose specific deadlines on the government to provide the data: say, four days. But not Minnesota. This leads to situations like we experienced with DHS.
THE Reformer undertook to determine whether any of the people charged in the case federal child nutrition fraud — colloquially known as Feeding Our Future, the name of the nonprofit that prosecutors say was at the center of the scam — still did business with various state agencies.
This is clearly a matter of public interest and the information should be relatively easy to find and disseminate.
After sending DHS a list of nonprofits associated with those involved in Feeding Our Future, we contacted Bickett. He said it would take staff some time to sort through our information and he would get back to us.
On March 7, Bickett said he would check with staff to see if he could get an update.
Twenty-three days later, nothing, so Deena emailed Bickett. He said staff are still working there.
A few weeks later, he said they were still working on it.
To be clear: we gave them a list of non-profit businesses. All DHS had to do was confirm whether any of these companies had contracts with DHS.
The months passed.
Deena returned on July 5, with a shorter list of indicted people who appeared to have contracts with DHS, in the hope that it would speed up the process.
Always nothing.
A few days later, Deena called Bickett and he told her they aimed to have information ready by July 21.
July 21 came and went.
On July 25, Deena asked if she could interview anyone on the subject.
“I will forward this to the people working on your data request and get back to you when I have an update,” Bickett said.
We had heard that Before.
They promised a “partial response” by July 28.
On July 28, Deena sent him an email asking if we could expect anything (as promised).
“Yes, that’s what we’re planning,” he replied.
And then he went on leave.
A spokesman named Scott Peterson replaced him. On July 31, it sent a statement saying in part: “Verifying identities and vendors to provide accurate information is challenging because the primary data fields from various state and federal entities and the information provided in your listing do not necessarily match . »
In other words: it’s too hard.
They concluded that about half of those charged by federal prosecutors had also worked on DHS-funded contracts, but “some” of them had not received payment since before 2022 (when the scandal exploded).
On August 1, we gave up on getting answers about specific nonprofits and decided to rely on our own research using a flawed method. state budget tool. The next day, Bickett emailed Deena, saying they would not disclose Nothing regarding reducing funding or revoking the licenses of those involved in Feeding Our Future.
They would only say that DHS had issued disqualifications, license revocations, stop payments and terminations to contractors and referred all cases of suspected fraud to the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Deena emailed three questions and got no response.
And what about the list of nonprofits we sent? They were finishing their exam, he said.
As the saga continued, we published a story without confirmation from DHS of what we had found. This was certainly an incomplete list of all the nonprofits that still had contracts with the state. But we did what we could.
Then, eight days later, Bickett called Deena and asked if she still wanted the requested data.
“We are still reviewing your lists,” he said.
This review likely continues today, as she has yet to receive anything.
This is just one infuriating example of state agency obstruction (or perhaps just shocking incompetence), which shows a disregard for the public’s right to know basic information about how tax money is used.
Violations of the Data Practices Act can be challenged in court, or you can pay $1,000 to be placed on the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings docket to hopefully force the compliance.
(Some states have an intermediate board that can issue binding orders against government entities that violate the Public Access to Records Act.)
But people shouldn’t have to pay $1,000 or go to court to get information that by law is presumed to be available to the public.
Just last week, the state budget agency said they could not provide an estimate of the total interest cost on the nearly $500 million renovation of the State Office Building.
Given the unknowns, this is not something we thought we could fairly estimate, so for now, the public remains in limbo.
Fortunately, a new legislative session is approaching. I hope media organizations will come together with people from across the ideological spectrum who care about open government and lobby lawmakers for our public records law. We need to reform it and give it teeth, including imposing heavy fines on agencies that don’t comply.
Government secrecy is like an undetected poison polluting our democratic waters.
Reform journalist Deena Winter contributed to this column.
