A Thoughtful Approach to Cutting MN State Expenditures

 A Thoughtful Approach to Cutting MN State Expenditures

Rick Olson
April 1, 2025

One message voters last November 5 sent is that they are greatly concerned about their own pocketbooks. Polls have also revealed that many people believe that there is "waste, fraud and abuse" in federal and MN state spending. In reality, in MN, this can be broken down into three categories:

  1. Expenditures on things that some voters do not like on policy reasons, but the legislature has approved.
  2. Spending on things that most people support but may differ on levels of spending on those initiatives.
  3. Ineffective or insufficient oversight on expenditures approved. 

Costs in the third category are not favored by few if any elected officials, as shown by the bipartisan efforts to provide better oversight of programs such as the massive fraud we saw with the Feeding our Future fiasco. I am hoping my financial and business background will assist the legislature make more effective constraints on future misspending.

I perceive that in most cases, I will favor the compassionate approach of the DFL party members on the first category, assuming a good case is make for the initiative.

For the middle category here we have a conflict between compassion and frugality. We must be frugal with MN taxpayers' money. Every dollar that is paid to some worthy recipient comes out of some other MN taxpayer's pocket. We must keep in mind that we already have a progressive taxation system in our state. Raising taxes may drive taxpayers and/or business to more tax friendly states.  So, care is call for.

Lessons from the federal level:

What we are seeing is a chainsaw approach to cutting spending at the federal level. Little thought is being given on what or how much is being "cut" other than petty grievances and policy differences. The result is much uncertainty, lives disrupted and so far, little actual savings found and no evidence of any fraud. Minnesota deserves a more thoughtful approach.

In the March 30 Stat Tribune business section, Evan Ramstad discussed suggestions by former State Finance Commissioner Peter Hutchinson that MN adopt a bottoms up process like was done in Washington State which set out a set of performance outcomes  and then seeing what resources would be needed to get the desires results, along with accountability. "The right questions were being asked: What results do we want? How much do we want to spend to get those results? What is the best way to deliver those results for that amount of money? 

Former Governor Arne Carlson suggested that a special commission be appointed to meet monthly to study the federal changes that will affect Minnesota, presumably bring an outside expert input into the process. 

Overall, Evan Ramstad's opinion is that we need to stop looking at the incremental changes in revenue and spending and adopt a more wholistic approach is needed. I agree. I very thoughtful, complete analysis is needed. I don't have an exact description of this effort that is needed, but wish to open up the discussion on how best this can be done. I do not, however, that we do have a great resource of expertise in the Humphrey School of Public Policy to tap into for this effort.

For a starter, here are some basic facts to consider:

Where the money comes from, FY 2024-25 Biennium


Where the money is spent,  FY 2024-25 Biennium





Prepared and paid for by Olson Senate Committee, P.O. Box 15. Prior Lake, MN 55372

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