Judy Randall

Can Minnesota Be Generous Without Being Robbed Blind

An interview in the series: “Restoring Trust in Our Minnesota Institutions”

January 27, 2026

Legislative Auditor Judy Randall discusses the recent rampant fraud cases in state-funded public assistance programs and how Minnesota can improve oversight.

Panelists: Paul Ostrow (moderator), Chloe Zhao, Ted Kolderie, Helen Baer, Lee Munnich

“Minnesota is a good governance state. I feel the pride in that. But we have some work to do as a state to get back to where we all thought we were. We are going to have to make some changes. But, at the end of the day, the people who need to implement those tough decisions are there, and they are committed. That’s a reason to be hopeful.”

Summary

Judy Randall discusses the possibility of the state being generous while protecting the trust of the people. She says the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) is a vital, nonpartisan office that enhances accountability by independently assessing the use of public funds and the effectiveness of government programs. She claims that many of the high-profile program failures are not due to corruption but structural flaws, including bad program design and misalignments between personnel duties and skills. Randall highlights transparency, evidence-based oversight, and institutional learning as the keys to democratic governance in an age of fragmented media and diminishing trust. She does not propose accountability as a threat to generosity, but as a condition to its continuation.

Background

The Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) is the professional, nonpartisan audit and evaluation office in the legislative branch of Minnesota state government that examines how public money is spent and the effectiveness of state programs. Its mission is to make state government work better.

Judy Randall was appointed legislative auditor in November 2021 to a 6-year term by the Legislative Audit Commission. She has served with the Office of the Legislative Auditor for 27 years, most recently as deputy legislative auditor under Jim Nobles. She runs a staff of more than 50 auditors. Randall has a bachelor’s degree in economics and math from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and master’s degrees in economics and educational administration from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Prior to joining the Office of the Legislative Auditor, her work experience included roles as an analyst at JP Morgan & Co. in New York, and a researcher at The Center for Social Gerontology in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Discussion

How does the Office of the Legislative Auditor contribute to public trust?
Randall says her office operates without political influence. Although legislators may demand audits, they have no control over the results or the release of reports. This distance enables the office to pursue the evidence, even where the results are contrary to the political anticipations.

Trust is built through evidence-based findings and transparency, with everyone – lawmakers, agencies and the public – all working with the same set of facts. Auditing is not a form of punishment but a means of accountability and education. When institutions are transparent about their shortcomings, there is a higher chance that the confidence of the people will survive.

Are the current problems bad actors or bad systems?
The interview did not dwell on the recent issues of fraud and mismanagement in public assistance programs, but rather explored the circumstances that contribute to the scandals. One of the key arguments of the discussion is that most failures are caused by bad design rather than blatant corruption. Randall distinguishes between regulation and structure, emphasizing that rules cannot correct programs with basic misalignments. She uses the examples of grant management and licensing systems, where the mismatch between staff skills and job requirements can silently compromise oversight.

As an example, program managers who are concerned with service delivery tend to be involved in complicated financial activities that they are not trained or motivated to perform well. These structural discrepancies over time provide spaces of error or misbehavior. Randall says the first step to preventing fraud is to design systems that make good behavior easy and bad behavior difficult.

What is the impact of media and information fragmentation on accountability?
The panelists express concerns regarding the way younger generations access political information, which is usually through social media rather than through traditional journalism. Randall acknowledges the difficulty, but she emphasizes the importance of media literacy and triangulation, i.e., comparing various sources to identify important facts.

She observes that the current political rhetoric tends to focus on speed and outrage rather than accuracy and context. Audit reports, which are thick and technical, usually do not find their way into this environment. Nevertheless, she asserts that good democratic oversight requires citizens who are ready to take their time, research facts, and avoid simplistic narratives.

Do audits really enhance government performance?
The interview panel of former policymakers provides examples of cases when audit results resulted in positive changes in programs and improved outcomes. Randall affirms that her office cannot force agencies or the Legislature to take action, but audit reports can be used as a guide to reform.

She stresses that audits are most effective when regarded as improvement tools rather than threats. Agency obstruction, defensiveness, or information concealment are detrimental to institutional learning and public trust.

Final thoughts

Randall says she would like to see a shift from the current atmosphere of adversarialness to everyone being more cooperative and collaborative, and realize that we all want the same thing: our government to work better.