India, Jan. 8 -- ST. PAUL, Minn., January 8 - Long before auditors found fabricated documents in a $425 million grant program, state employees inside the agency were warning that their concerns were being ignored. A scathing new legislative audit reveals that the systemic failures in Minnesota's Behavioral Health Administration were visible to its own staff, who say they lacked training and a voice.

The audit included a survey of the agency's own personnel. The results show a workforce that felt ill-equipped and unheard:

The internal feedback frames the subsequent findings of missing reports and falsified records not as sudden errors, but as symptoms of a known, unaddressed internal culture.

The nonpartisan Office of the Legislative Au...