Minnesota Budget Director Myron Frans Is Leaving The Walz Administration; Jim Schowalter Coming Back To MMB

From the Minnesota Reformer:

By J. Patrick Coolican
August 12, 2020

Myron Frans, who has been the state’s budget director since 2015, is leaving the administration of Gov. Tim Walz, taking a job as senior vice president of finance and operations at the University of Minnesota.

“Because of his leadership, Minnesota is in a stronger position to weather the fiscal consequences of this pandemic, and we wish him well,” Walz said in a statement.

Walz announced that Jim Schowalter — who was Frans’s predecessor at the Department of Management and Budget — would assume that role once again.

Schowalter is a revolving door pick, having served as CEO of the Minnesota Council of Health Plans and then as a senior vice president at HealthPartners after leaving government — a resume that may raise eyebrows among the newly ascendant progressives at the State Capitol.

But Schowalter also brings expertise in the complexities state budget at a crucial moment that mirrors his experience as budget director during the Great Recession. State government faces a current $2.4 billion shortfall, and a potential $4.7 billion deficit in the next two year budget cycle.

Frans, who was one of a handful of holdovers from the administration of former DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, will take with him a wealth of important information about the inner workings of state government and its more than 30,000 workers.

After a career as a successful tax lawyer, Frans was tapped by Dayton to be his first commissioner of the Department of Revenue, where Frans helped develop and market Dayton’s signature fiscal policy: A new fourth income tax tier that helped provide years of state budget structural surpluses.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..