The Timberjay applauds Walz’s efforts to use broadband to boost jobs and suggests that some of those jobs could be State jobs…

Gov. Tim Walz has rightly made boosting the economic prospects of rural Minnesota a key part of his One Minnesota agenda.

Major investment in rural broadband, which is high on the governor’s agenda, is certainly one way to provide new economic opportunity in non-metro parts of the state. His plan to boost local government aid and education funding will also yield benefits for rural Minnesota.

They also make the case that once broadband is available, the door opens to moving State jobs…

But here’s one more thing that should be on the governor’s agenda: Spreading more of the state workforce outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. The state of Minnesota is an enormous employer, with a permanent workforce that averages about 35,000 people. Right now, about 21,000 of those employees, or about 61 percent, work in the seven-county metro area. That leaves just over 13,000 jobs spread out across the rest of Minnesota, about a quarter of those with the Department of Natural Resources.