That is the message that I and 240 fellow Minnesota mayors have been raising since December and that I am reiterating now on the eve of the 2026 legislative session. Tim Walz and legislative leadership to take this seriously. It also doesn’t explain the former legislative auditor’s clear, nonpartisan findings outlining multiple missed opportunities — by a DFL-controlled Legislature — to address fraud before it ballooned. Legislative leadership in St. Paul has spent years politicking instead of governing — passing mandates with little regard for necessity, cost, or local capacity. Shifting blame to national figures who had no role in these decisions doesn’t explain what went wrong, and it certainly doesn’t help Minnesotans understand how we move forward.