Often Minnesotans wonder if they are being heard by their state government. Thursday afternoon, the state confirmed they were not.

The state telephone system crashed at 12:48 p.m., meaning that about 20,000 employees could not make or get calls from anyone outside the state system.

"This issue prevented state employees from making or receiving calls from their [Voice Over Internet Protocol] telephones to phones that were outside of the State of Minnesota's internal network," according to the state technology office.

The problem impacted the governor's office and other key state offices.

By 1:27 p.m., a state fix allowed employees to again make calls. By 3:30 p.m., the employees were again able to receive calls.