All right, we are now on to number four of our agenda. The Department of Administration overview of OIG Implementation Office and proposed position description. I'd like to welcome to the table Ms. Ann Freeman. Please state your name for the record and begin when ready. >> All right, good morning. For the record, my name is Ann Freeman. Um good morning, Madam Chair, Vice Chair, and Commission members. Um I'm Ann Freeman. I am the Human Resources Director at the Department of Administration. My office uh provides HR support to the Department of Administration along with 46 other small agencies, boards, and councils under what we call the SMART program or the Small Agency Resource Team. I'm honored to be a part of the Office of Inspector General Implementation Team and I'm here today to talk with you and ask for your guidance, your input, to your recommendations into the draft materials materials provided to you today along with your decision on the process for which we'll use to hire the next Inspector General. So, just a couple of items on the agenda for my presentation include a brief overview of our OIG Implementation Team, both the purpose and our work streams, and an overview of the proposed draft Inspector General position description. The OIG Implementation Team um under Session Law Chapter 92 or Minnesota State Statute 15E.10, it gave Admin the authority to help establish and set up the Office of the Inspector General. The OIG Implementation Team exists to manage and support the operational establishment of this office during its first 12 to 18 months. And the team aims to prepare and support the set of the initial structure and infrastructure, resources, and solutions to help make the launch of this office successful. You'll see on this slide our implementation team. This includes our implementation lead along with project support that includes our project manager as well as our project coordinator as well as several different work streams to help make this project successful. These specific work streams include work with human resources, which I'm happy um to be the lead on that work stream. Uh finance, legal, intergovernmental relations, and specifically related to any transition of staff including the Minnesota Department of Education OIG >> [clears throat] >> excuse me, transfer >> [cough] >> to this office. Um communications and change management, IT and operations. Operations include space planning as well. And then finally, research and resource development. And of course, we'd be happy in further discussions to provide more information on our implementation work. In your packets, you have several draft items uh related to this meeting today. Um first is the position description. You also have a draft job posting along with a proposed hiring process and timeline uh that Ms. Yurczyk will provide additional information on and our marketing and outreach plan. The IG position description was initially drafted um by the Minnesota Management and Budget budgets classification team with input from stakeholders. And the PD is mainly based on the duties outlined in the in the statute. The first part of the position description, part A, covers the position purpose. It also covers who this position reports to along with who it supervises as well as the budget and the clientele. The position purpose is to establish and lead this office as an independent oversight entity within the executive branch in compliance with statutory deadlines, professional standards, and legislatively mandated reporting requirements. It's responsible for safeguarding the integrity, accountability, and transparency in the operations of state um executive branch agencies and programs. It establishes and enforces statewide standards for fraud prevention and investigative [clears throat] processes. It conducts and coordinates inspections and program integrity investigations across agencies. And then finally it ensures that all findings, actions, and operations are documented through a robust reporting systems. The IG will report to the governor. It will supervise the deputy inspector general along with additional office of inspector general staff. We estimate approximately 44 um full-time staff at least in this initial establishment. The clientele will of course include the governor, executive branch agencies and leadership, as well as agency inspector generals, law enforcement, prosecutorial partners, legislative oversight bodies including closely working with the office of the legislative auditor, private entities, contractors, service providers, internal OIG staff, and contracted external reviewers, and of course members of the public. The budget will include a little over $2 million in fiscal year 27 that this position will oversee, as well as just over 6 and 1/2 million in the base budget in fiscal years 28 and 29. The next part of the position description lays out the principal responsibilities. This is in part B of that position description. These um principal responsibilities include directing the operations, personnel, and administrative systems of the OIG. Develop and enforce statewide standards for agency Inspector General operations. Conduct independent inspections, evaluations, and investigations of state programs, local governments, and private recipients of state funds to detect fraud. Direct the development strategic use statewide data, analytics, and intelligence capabilities to strengthen fraud prevention, detection, investigation, and enforcement. Issue referrals, fraud alerts, and exclusion list determinations. Maintain statewide fraud reporting and complaint tracking systems. And provide independent legislative and policy recommendations to strengthen statewide program integrity. You'll see in the position description's principal responsibilities, percentages that we roughly estimate that this position will spend in doing or overseeing at least each of these items. And then finally we removed we moved to part C. Part C of that position description includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for this position. It talks about the nature and scope of this position, the relationships that this position will engage with, and the level of level of problem-solving this position will have, along with the level of authority and independence this position will have under the freedom to act section. This slide highlights the knowledge, skills, and abilities, specifically those statutory minimum qualifications that are required for this position. This position will need to hold a bachelor's or higher degree in criminal justice, public administration, law, or related field. Have at least 10 years of professional experience in auditing, investigations, law enforcement, program integrity, or related discipline. Possess a professional certification in the Association of Inspector Generals. And then demonstrate commitment to public service integrity, and provide public disclosure of prior professional opinions or actions that may influence the approach to this role. So, with that, um, I will turn it back over to you to see if there are any additional questions. >> Thank you, Ms. Feynman. Any questions from members? Representative Klippert. >> Thank you very much. Uh, one of the pieces that I find a little bit difficult in the section C is this demonstration of commitment. Um, will you be able to provide to the committee some examples of what that demonstration of commitment, I know you've done it at a very high level, but I think that's the piece that is more subjective than objective. So, I I don't know. How does that work? >> Ms. Feynman. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Madam Chair, and in under that light as well, I think we have to I think we will lean back and as we talk about not only the the position that takes the leadership role, but the operational policies for everybody that operates within that agency as well. And so, we do through great lengths, right, to make sure that partisanship or bipartisanship is non-existent or and it goes into practices in in the OLA where we we don't allow them to run for office. Those types of things or to be able to overtly identify in their private life, right, to in order to serve in the capacity. And I think we need to mirror those types of hiring and operational policies from the from the agency head all the way through the staff and operations. >> [snorts] >> Representative Klippert. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just asking for concrete kinds of examples. I don't disagree with the neutrality of the office. I don't disagree with the items that you're stating. I'm just asking how do we get to the most neutral position possible in doing that commitment to public service. >> And I I we can probably hear too from Ms. Faymon who can maybe answer your question directly. >> Thank you. Thank you, Representative Claiborne, for the question. I um would hate to speculate on specific examples here at this table necessarily. I think it's going to obviously depend on the candidate, but we are really looking for accountability and transparency in terms of identifying any potential conflicts of interest that may impact the judgment of this individual. I think we can all agree that Minnesotans really need to be able to trust the individual in this particular um position, and so doing that non-partisan check with the legislative um coordinating commission and making sure that we are identifying any potential conflicts of interest so that that person um is coming to the table essentially having that transparent, right, accountability. And then I think for all of you to essentially take a look and assess whether any of those potential conflicts or viewpoints, right, might get in the way um of that person's judgment in this role. >> Follow up, Representative Claiborne. >> Well, I just want to say thank you because it is that public trust that we're trying to get to. And so your answer was spot on. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. >> Any other questions, members? All right. Seeing none. Thank you very much.