Transparency in state government is important. Without it, the public has less reason to trust that its leaders are making wise and responsible decisions that carefully steward public resources. Minnesota’s Government Data Practices Act starts from the premise that government records belong to the public unless a specific law says otherwise.
Yet in practice, obtaining the data needed to reassure the public of institutional transparency and sound decision-making isn’t always easy.
Case in point
Take the Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI). As an official agency of the State of Minnesota, it oversees roughly $94 billion in public pension assets that belong to teachers and thousands of other public workers. Board members, of which there are four, are elected politicians: the Governor (who chairs the board), the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the State Auditor. Gov. Tim Walz has chaired the board throughout his tenure.
Who is supposed to verify that the billions in workers’ retirement savings are being wisely managed by this board?
Enter a group of thousands of Minnesota educators who responded to this lack of verification by hiring someone themselves. With growing frustration over not being able to get basic investment records on the Teachers Retirement Association (TRA) — whose fund assets are managed and invested by the SBI — educators crowdfunded an independent forensic investigation by Edward Siedle. Siedle, a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer with decades of experience auditing public pension funds around the country, released a 100+-page report on his findings in September 2024.
As American Experiment has covered here, the findings are eyebrow-raising, from fees that don’t add up to suspiciously tidy performance numbers. The fund has also been underperforming, driven in part by improper liability discounting that understates how underfunded it really is.
Obtaining information from SBI on TRA wasn’t easy, Siedle says. In fact, it took nearly a year after requests for public records were submitted to SBI for the agency to provide limited information — material Siedle hadn’t asked for while omitting the key information his team had requested, he explains.
Transparency, Siedle points out, “would add not a single dollar of additional cost” to the Minnesota TRA or SBI and “could, through exposure, swiftly cure all that ails both pensions — highly suspect performance claims; massive undisclosed, excessive and potentially bogus investment fees and expenses; reckless risk-taking; unaddressed conflicts of interest, mismanagement and potential malfeasance.”
SBI’s investment decisions are bound by law. Under Minnesota Statutes Chapter 11A, which created the SBI and defines its authority, and Chapter 356A, the state’s Public Pension Fiduciary Responsibility Act, the board is held to the “prudent person” standard, which requires every investment to be exercised in the same manner that a prudent professional would use when managing someone else’s retirement money. But if the public, or independent auditors like Siedle, can’t get certain performance data or disclosures, confirming that the SBI is meeting its legal obligation becomes trickier.
American Experiment’s own experience with SBI has been similar to Siedle’s.
In September 2025, we filed a formal Data Practices Act request asking SBI for three specific things: its investment consulting contracts from FY 2020 through FY 2024, its annual gross investment return calculations for that same period, and annual consultants’ performance analyses and reports of the SBI’s pension trust fund. Six months later, SBI turned over consulting contracts, but not the actual gross-return calculations requested, and not the recurring performance and risk reports. Instead, the response included a mix of strategy memos, methodology slide decks, and asset-allocation study materials. Essentially, SBI answered a data request for numbers with everything except the numbers.
More transparency isn’t complicated
Fixing the transparency problem in Minnesota’s pension governance doesn’t require new legislation, just enforcement of what’s already on the books. For starters, the SBI should report investment returns (both gross and net of fees) to show what is being paid out. Disclosing the full history of benchmark changes used to gauge performance would also help, allowing for a “check” on whether the goalpost has been quietly adjusted to produce flattering results.
SBI is likely working on its next annual report covering the fiscal year that ended last June 30. This report should, per state statute, include portfolio composition, transactions, total annual rate of return, and fees/commissions paid to managers. And it’s an opportunity for SBI to incorporate some of the suggestions above.
Unlike records requests that SBI can slow-walk, this report has to be filed and made public by March 31. If there is increased public attention on what appears in the report, there’s more incentive for the agency to get the numbers reported correctly and honestly. Otherwise, governance failures will continue and institutions will continue getting away with a lack of transparency.
