In under a week, two scathing reports of potential and confirmed fraud have come to light. The waste, fraud, and abuse that the Walz Administration has enabled is unacceptable. It’s critically important that we hold these politically appointed commissioners and their staff accountable, or the abuse of taxpayer dollars will continue.
The well-known Feeding Our Future fraud has seen some convictions in court thus far and continued litigation is underway; However, the non-partisan Office of the Legislative Auditor found the Department of Education repeatedly ignored the warning signs surrounding this nonprofit.
Let’s break it down:
– MDE inappropriately asked Feeding Our Future to investigate complaints about itself
– MDE did not effectively exercise its authority to hold Feeding Our Future accountable to program requirements
– They were ill-prepared to respond to the issues it encountered with Feeding Our Future
– MDE had limited off-site monitoring of Feeding our Future despite federal COVID-19-pandemic-related waiver modifications encouraging off-site reviews and alternative oversight measures.
– Departments approved frontline worker payments to applicants who were not eligible and to applicants whose eligibility they could not determine
– Payments were made to individuals whose applications contained fraud indicators without investigating whether the applicants were legitimate
– The Department of Revenue did not verify the adjusted gross income for all applicants, which likely led to payments being made to ineligible applicants
These findings make it clear that our state government agencies continuously fail to provide basic oversight in potentially $400+ Million of fraud that has robbed the taxpayers of our state. We must work to ensure prevention measures are in place and hold those responsible accountable for this fraud.
Contact me
If you have any questions or comments about the issues we are working on, please contact me anytime. My email is sen.justin.eichorn@mnsenate.gov or you can call me at 651-296-7079.
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