State auditor candidates on attack

ST. PAUL -- It doesn't seem as though Rebecca Otto and Pat Anderson like each other much.

The two state auditor candidates may be running in a little-noticed race, but their rhetoric is like the hottest big-time campaigns can deliver.

A July dispute between the two illustrates the point:

"The next installment in a long history of Rebecca Otto playing fast and loose with the truth has arrived," an Anderson news release proclaimed.

"Both Anderson and her former deputy state auditor, now GOP party chair Tony Sutton, have trouble with math and try to spin the numbers," Otto shot back.

Otto ousted Anderson from the state auditor job four years ago, at the end of Anderson's first term, and this year's contest feels like a grudge match.

The auditor, who makes $102,257 annually, checks local governments' books.

The two candidates say they are running to be auditor, not to use the office as a steppingstone. However, Anderson began the campaign season as one of about a dozen GOP candidates for governor, then switched races when it became obvious that she trailed the leaders.

Before being auditor, Anderson was mayor of Eagan and after she lost to Otto she became a state commissioner, hired to eliminate her small state department.

Otto served on a school board, then one term in the Minnesota House. She lost a rematch with the person she beat in her effort to win a second term.

The current auditor began her career as a science teacher.

Otto and Anderson know most political attention is focused on the governor's race this year, but Anderson said because the office they seek deals with fiscal matters, "it is on the radar."

The two agree on one thing: They have different management styles.

Anderson said that when she was auditor, she was more active than is Otto. But Otto said Anderson and her chief deputy, now state Republican chairman, made too many math mistakes.

Otto said that when Anderson was auditor she thrived on finding government mistakes, while Otto said that she tries to teach governments in advance how to keep books correctly.

"Pat chased headlines," Otto charged.

Anderson said that an auditor needs to do more than routine fiscal audits. If that is all the official does, the state should just hire an auditor, she added.

An auditor, she said, needs to find ways to do financial work better. For instance, she said, while in office she gave local governments guidelines about how large their fund balances should be.

Otto complained that Anderson opposed local government aid, or LGA, in her auditor term, and actively put down the state aid program. Anderson, on the other hand, said she merely showed lawmakers and the public statistics and did not push an LGA policy.

The Green Party auditor candidate is Annie Young, who has spent 21 years on the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, the longest service of any member of her party in the country.

"I am seeking the office of state auditor to advance the Green Party's platform of environmental stewardship, social and economic justice, grass-roots democracy and local control," she said.

A Young goal is to receive 5 percent of the vote, which under state law would give the Green Party an easier route to put candidates on the ballot.

Don Davis reports for Forum Communications Co., which owns the News Tribune.