When it comes to budget-cutting measures, it appears Gov. Jesse Ventura got his way after all.

Last spring the Legislature overrode a veto by Ventura on a bill which put a moratorium on the hiring of consultants, and a halt on hiring new state employees. While the bill was passed into law, Ventura, one by one, has made it an ineffective one.

Of the 2,343 requests from agency commissioners to exempt contracts from the moratorium in the past nine months, Ventura turned down just 134. And since the ban on hiring new employees was imposed in March, the state has hired 419 new employees.

The rub: both bans have an "exception" clause in it which allows the hiring of consultants and new employees in cases where it is deemed necessary. And the criteria of whether a service is necessary can vary from one department head to another.

It's apparent that Ventura, who didn’t want the bill passed into law in the first place, probably has a far broader criteria of necessary services than the Legislature. And considering that state department heads aren't likely to cut their own budgets, it appears little budget cutting actually took place.

It's a lesson the Pawlenty administration should realize now: if you want to cut the state budget, and when the cuts involve the jobs of human beings, everyone has to be on board, and every cut must be accounted for. A command from on high simply isn't enough.