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.

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.

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?

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.