Legislative Update
Friends and Neighbors,
I hope you're having a great summer so far! I wanted to bring a couple disturbing reports on fraud in our great state to your attention. This week the Office of the Legislative Auditor, a nonpartisan legislative watchdog, released two reports on some of the biggest instances of fraud in Minnesota's history - the Feeding our Future fraud case as well as a new frontline worker pay fraud scandal. Read about both below:
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Frontline Worker Pay Fraud
On Tuesday the Minnesota Frontline Worker Pay Program review was released by the OLA as mentioned above. You can find that audit here along with numerous local news stories here and here.
The Legislative Auditor found that the Department of Labor and Industry approved payments to people who were not eligible or whose eligibility could not be determined. This included fraudulent duplicate applications including many from people who were deceased long before this program opened. In addition, the Department of Revenue did not verify all applicants met the adjusted gross income requirements.
The total amount of fraudulent payments is around $200 million.
This program was passed in 2022 (before I was in the legislature) and set aside a $500 million pool of money for our frontline workers who worked in-person during the pandemic. The expectation was that there would be under 500,000 eligible applicants who would split that pool of money. Ultimately, there were over 1 million applicants approved which meant our legitimate frontline workers received significantly smaller checks than they were likely entitled to due to fraudulent applicants also splitting those funds. This could have all been avoided if our agencies had simply done their jobs.
If you or someone you know was a frontline worker, I am truly sorry and angry that this happened. It’s inexcusable. Our appointed state agency leadership who made these decisions should be fired.
Feeding Our Future Fraud
This morning, the Legislative Auditor released the audit of the Minnesota Department of Education Oversight of Feeding our Future. You can find that full audit here. Frankly, this one is even worse and shows the incompetence of the Minnesota Department of Education in a multitude of ways.
The MDE was responsible for overseeing a program to feed hungry kids during Covid, including approving and verifying applicants, reviewing their operations, making payments when services were actually performed that met the guidelines, and ensuring the meals program was adequately monitored and being correctly administered.
Instead, the Legislative Auditor found MDE’s actions and inactions created opportunities for fraud.
MDE:
- Failed to act on warning signs known to the department prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and prior to the alleged fraud
- Did not effectively exercise it’s authority to hold Feeding Our Future accountable to program requirements
- Was ill-prepared to respond to the issues it encountered with Feeding Our Future
The MN Department of Education received over 30 complaints from outside people and entities over this timeframe. Rather than investigating them, the MDE either ignored them or ASKED FEEDING OUR FUTURE TO INVESTIGATE COMPLAINTS ABOUT ITSELF. Even the two times the MDE found Feeding Our Future “seriously delinquent," they did nothing about it and continued making payments.
It is clear that this $250 million+ fraud would have never occurred if the MN Department of Education would have done the very basics of their job. They let it happen even knowing there was a significant issue but instead turned a blind eye and continued to allow it to grow to unimaginable proportions. We have to ask ourselves, WHY?
Minnesota used to have a reputation for competent and clean government. Those days seem to be gone and we are all much worse off because of it. I hope that in the future we can stay vigilant and prevent further instances of fraud.
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