Nearly four months ago, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services put Inspector General Carolyn Ham on leave to investigate a complaint regarding Ham’s management of fraud in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). In recent days it has been revealed that that investigation has yet to start and that Ham has received nearly $42,000 in taxpayer dollars over that time. 

Following the news, Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen (R-Alexandria) issued the following statement:

“The recent developments in the Ham investigation are yet another example of failed leadership from the Walz administration.  When Inspector General Ham was first put on leave, it was regarding serious concerns of waste, fraud, and abuse of Minnesota taxpayer dollars. Yet, rather than to pursue the investigation the administration has wasted even more state dollars, hoping that concerns would die down and calls for reform would disappear.  Minnesota taxpayers deserve better, they deserve a government that will tell them the truth and one that aggressively investigates to get to the bottom of fraud and abuse.

“Governor Walz campaigned on government transparency, and it’s time to live up to that promise, there is no reason to hold up the investigation into the one person whose job it was to protect Minnesotans from fraud. Whatever the reason Minnesotans deserve answers now.”

In March, a legislative audit of fraud allegations within the Minnesota Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) found “significant distrust” between Inspector General Carolyn Ham and the investigators that work in her office, explaining that upon Ham’s appointment to the position in 2017, the previously “good working relationship” with the Inspector General deteriorated. The report also detailed that Ham had initial meetings with all work units within the Inspector General Office, except with the child care fraud investigators, stating that “most of the investigators…have never met Ham, and several noted her unwillingness to speak to them”.

Additionally, the OLA report cited Ham’s efforts to “discredit” the work of her own investigators, going so far as to use $90,000 of taxpayer funds to hire an outside consulting firm to “examine the…investigation unit” within her own office. Further, during a legislative committee hearing, Ham made a statement that “clearly left the impression that

[she]

does not trust the…investigators that work within her office.

To date, the Walz administration and Department of Human Services have failed to determine the exact dollar amount of child care fraud occurring in Minnesota.