In response to the recent OLA report on the alarming lack of oversight by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, Senator Andrew Lang (R-Olivia) is calling for urgent reforms to ensure adequate oversight of and protection for taxpayer dollars in the future.  

 

“This is a stunning failure,” Senator Lang said. “The report shows MDE ignored obvious warning signs of potential fraud, yet they continued to fund the organization anyway. This is a pretty clear case of incompetence and yet another instance of fraud that the Walz Administration has become known for overlooking. Minnesotans are counting on us to protect their tax dollars and ensure they’re spent effectively and with proper oversight.” 

 

The Office of the Legislative Auditor’s report shows a complete failure to act on warning signs prior to the start of the Covid pandemic. In fact, despite ongoing application concerns and non-compliance with program requirements, MDE repeatedly approved Feeding our Future’s application, and did not verify or investigate concerns adequately.  

 

Additionally, the report revealed:  

 

·         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.