Friends and neighbors,
This week we received two blistering reports on fraud of taxpayer programs that has occurred under the Walz administration. These reports reveal a disturbing pattern of mismanagement, lack of oversight, and failure to protect public funds against exploitation. As your elected official, I am outraged by these findings and committed to holding the administration accountable.
The first report exposes widespread fraud in the Feeding Our Future program, administered by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). Hundreds of millions of dollars intended for providing meals to needy children were instead stolen through a massive fraud scheme. The second report uncovers systemic issues in the Frontline Worker Pay Program, where payments were distributed to numerous ineligible individuals due to lax verification processes.
Feeding Our Future Fraud Audit Key Findings:
- MDE’s inadequate oversight allowed the exploitation of federally funded nutrition programs, enabling the theft of over $250 million.
- MDE ignored numerous red flags and failed to act on serious concerns raised over several years about Feeding Our Future’s operations.
- MDE repeatedly approved the organization’s applications without proper verification, even after finding them non-compliant in previous reviews.
- MDE failed to thoroughly investigate complaints and inappropriately tasked Feeding Our Future with investigating itself.
- Despite finding Feeding Our Future seriously deficient on two occasions, MDE did not ensure corrective actions, allowing the fraud to continue.
Frontline Worker Fraud Report Key Findings:
- 40% of payments were made to either ineligible applicants or to applicants whose eligibility could not be verified.
- DLI primarily relied on self-attestation from applicants, failing to verify critical eligibility criteria like in-person work hours.
- Clear fraud indicators, such as high-risk bank routing numbers and disposable email domains, were ignored by DLI.
- DOR did not verify the adjusted gross income for over 27,000 applicants, likely resulting in payments to ineligible individuals.
- Critical data, including identity verification information, was not consistently retained, hindering the ability to verify applicant eligibility.
These reports highlight the Walz administration’s utter disregard for taxpayer dollars and a failure to uphold basic standards of oversight and accountability.
You deserve far better — your hard-earned tax dollars should never be treated with such carelessness. We must demand transparency, implement stronger safeguards, and ensure that those responsible for allowing this fraud to happen face appropriate consequences.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Sincerely,