“I don’t think too many little girls grow up dreaming of being a state auditor,” said Julie Blaha, running for re-election in November. “I suppose the first time I thought about it in some capacity was when my mom became the first woman to ever serve on a committee in Burns Township. The northern Anoka County town is now a bustling metropolis. But back then, Mom decided it was time to get the roads paved. She was sick of the dust and our neighbor, Mr. Lane, who was on oxygen, not being able to sit on his porch. A childhood friend couldn’t ride her bike because she had asthma. So, she got herself appointed to the Township road and bridge committee even though we didn’t have a bridge yet. The neighbors all got together and the roads got paved. That was when I could see that local government and community activism could really make a difference.”
Blaha taught middle school math. Because she really wanted to support her students and their families, she learned everything she could about school finance. School systems were about processes, and she wanted to learn the game. It didn’t take long for the future president of her union to move on up the career ladder to eventually becoming the first woman to become the treasurer of the MN AFL-CIO. She worked on pensions
“I showed people how take a budget and available resources and match them to the values of an individual or organization. If a person can vote,” she said, “they are capable of voting on a billion-dollar issue, and that would be a good vote. Cultural institutional shorthand should not limit or assume what people can and cannot do.”
As the state auditor, “I oversee about 60 billion dollars in government spending mostly on a local level. The importance of our work is basically oversight so we can protect our freedom to make decisions about our communities. When local government works, that gives us a structure to come together as neighbors. What happens in the process is that the people who are closest to an issue get to be the people who are leading the solutions. We all know if it’s the people who are most directly involved, they will often have the best ideas. If we can keep the trust, reduce the waste and abuse, and make sure people are following the rules, local people will be responsible for bringing about positive change,” she said in a recent interview on The Conversation with Al McFarlane.
Blaha describes the work of her office of highly competent and dedicated team members as vitally important to the establishment of organizational transparency guided by clearly understood standards and protocols yielding positive end results.
“There are different kinds of audits,” she said. “There are legislative audits and performance audits. The people who made the decisions wants someone to check to see if their decision worked the way they expected it to. Often there are qualitative and sometimes subjective audits about the decision. Are financial statements accurate, fair, and complete? Are there controls in place to check for fraud, mistakes, legal compliance, and sometimes pre-conceived notions and racial biases? We leave our subjects with the honest truth and a declaration that our data could not be misrepresented.”
A basic component of Blaha’s professional philosophy is an established standard balancing local control while meeting the obligation of having the choices of where to invest. She said local control works best when there is fairness and equity. One of the projects she is most proud of is called ‘State of Main Street’ which she likened to the Governor’s State of State, and the President’s State of the Union. “Each year, we pull together county and township reports trends and inviting community members to express what the graphs and numbers mean to them and to their community. We have to seize the opportunities to talk about subjects that aren’t very comfortable. We find all the time that urban and rural areas are marginalized and at a disadvantage sometimes because of biased systems,” she said.
“I also don’t think we should assume that every time we see a difference, that it’s about division. It may be customization, and that could be a good thing. I’d be concerned if everything was the same. We must work together to ensure safety, that the rule of law is carried out for all, and that we embrace more inclusivity and denied freedoms. We all know that if it’s the people who are most directly involved that have the best idea. If we can keep the trust and reduce the waste and abuse, we’ll end up with local people making good decisions. Those decisions are based on shared values, fairness, and equity. Here are the standards, the limitations, and a people’s rights. We must find the right balance,” she said.
Blaha said the November election will be different. She said she is running against a MAGA G.O.P. opponent whose focus has been on undermining the institutions that provide oversight. He received the second highest number of votes in the last election and has already contributed $80,000 of his own money into his campaign. “That’s more than most people make in a year,” she said. “He calls himself a Trump election lawyer, even bragging about chasing an election judge around town. In 2020, he got in his car and pursued a guy simply trying to drop off his ballot box.” |This is not a time for single-issue personal agendas; she said.”
Blaha said Republican Senate diehards refuse to approve portions of available funding that could help those in need. “There were common sense thing the legislature agreed to do. But they were too invested in division so very little got accomplished. That’s really sad when we have people living in tent encampments and there’s money available that was supposed to help them. Any legislator that’s running for office and is not willing to come back to St. Paul and keep their promises to the people to get things done by using the surplus the way Minnesotans wanted it to be used, really doesn’t deserve anyone’s vote. Ask them how they would use the funding to get the city moving forward. That will tell you a lot about the legislator,” she said.
“There’s a future we must all strive for,” Blaha said, “a place where we are expected to develop all our capabilities, where none of us are sidelined because of how we look, and where there is no patriarchy or GOP saying, ‘it’s my way, or the highway’. The key is shared ability, partnership, collaboration, and having an understanding that values the input of all involved.”
