ST. PAUL, MN – Today, the Minnesota House of Representatives passed HF 938, a bill chief authored by State Representative Mary Sawatzky (DFL – Willmar) to streamline state government and eliminate obsolete government reports. The bill passed with bipartisan support on a 73-57 vote.
The bill updates statute by repealing sections that direct the Department of Administration to provide information for the eliminated Minnesota Milestones Report. The bill also eliminates a requirement that the Department of Administration publish a state agency guidebook. That information is already published on the North Star website.
“This is a simple, straightforward bill designed to streamline government and eliminate redundancies,” said Rep. Sawatzky. “As legislators, we need to be finding ways to make government more efficient and catch up with the times. This bill is another step in the right direction.”
Current law requires the Department of Administration to provide Minnesota Management and Budget with recommendations for use of Minnesota Milestones in budget documents. The Department of Administration does not have adequate resources necessary to fully comply with that mandate and entities like the Wilder Foundation are providing more robust reports, making this requirement redundant.
Another provision in the bill is a technical change to remove language that requires a state agency guidebook to be published. “North Star,” the government’s framework for providing access to government information online, was statutorily created in 1997/98. The Department of Administration no longer publishes the guidebook as all information that was contained in the guidebook is now readily available online.
“The North Star guidebook, when printed, is about 400 pages long and is outdated as soon as it’s published,” said Rep. Sawatzky. “This is common-sense reform and saves the state money by using existing technology to replace an obsolete and outdated publication.
“I’m hopeful we can get the bill signed into law this year.”