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Capitol Comments by Peggy Bennett

It seems one can’t turn on the news these days without hearing about another fraud investigation or news report about fraudsters stealing tax dollars in Minnesota. This is getting embarrassing!

To date, more than $600 million has been documented as stolen from taxpayers due to fraudulent activity over the past six years. This just relates to the cases that have been uncovered and fleshed out. The actual total is most likely well over $1 billion.

This is real money, folks — and it’s a lot. This is not only an affront to the taxpayers of Minnesota who deserve to know that their tax dollars are not being stolen or wasted, but it’s also a travesty for the people and projects that really need these funds.

Think of what $600 million could do for our state…

It could build at least three more state-of-the-art veterans’ homes to serve our veterans throughout Minnesota and fully staff them for 25 years.

It could pay for the much-needed mill and overlay for Highway 22 between Wells (through Kiester) and the Iowa border, along with 86 other state highways just like that one.

It could pay for ongoing individual tutoring over the next five years for every student who still needs remediation from learning loss during the COVID lockdowns, and also provide continuing professional development and training for educators so they can focus on the core academic areas of reading, writing, math and science.

It could provide much-needed property tax relief for Minnesotans who are struggling under high inflation. $600 million can do so much!

Since my first term in 2015, many legislators have been well aware of fraud problems. House Republicans have raised concerns and offered legislation for years. Sadly, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have consistently acted as a roadblock toward investigation. They literally called our fraud claims “fairy dust” at one point.

From Feeding Our Future — $250 million lost, the largest fraud scam in our nation’s history — to Medicaid and frontline worker financial programs, irrefutable proof continues to pour forth.

One recent fraud report came from a KSTP-TV investigation. It discovered Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) providers that were never even operational, despite receiving millions in taxpayer dollars. A simple Google search by anyone could have discovered in seconds that those buildings could not house children. Thank you to the news organizations that are doing these investigations and simple legwork. My question is, why isn’t our government doing this work?

The latest fraud scandal centers on a large substance abuse nonprofit organization. A report in a recent Star Tribune article showed that state officials listed five potential fraud concerns in a letter to the organization last year: billing for services not provided; using illegal kickbacks; failing to return overpayments; submitting claims where it wasn’t entitled to reimbursement and failing to comply with legal requirements to document services.

Another day, another fraud. This is very sad for our state and highly concerning.

This session, House Republicans have implemented a new fraud committee and it’s been doing amazing work. What members are uncovering is downright maddening. The committee’s first hearing focused on the oversight of taxpayer-funded grants to nonprofit organizations as was detailed in its 2023 Office of the Legislative Auditor’s (OLA) report Oversight of State-Funded Grants to Nonprofit Organizations. Among many points, OLA investigators noted they found “pervasive noncompliance” with policies that are meant to stop fraud within state government.

In addition, the committee learned the Walz Administration has not been stopping kickbacks discovered within the fraud-riddled CCAP, where at least $150 million has been stolen. This has been a known problem since at least 2019 when the OLA released a report. Amazingly, remedies were recommended but never implemented by the administration.

This is ridiculous!

Sadly, fraud — theft of taxpayer money — has become par for the course in Minnesota. Outright dysfunction in government has enabled fraudsters to steal hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. The constant excuses, lack of accountability, and deflecting blame has to stop. This should be a bipartisan issue that we can all agree is important, and must be addressed immediately.

I appreciate that the governor has finally acknowledged this issue and recently released his anti-fraud plan. However, it centers around allowing the administrative branch to police itself. That’s not going to cut it. My Republican colleagues and I have offered a plan to address this issue that creates an independent Inspector General outside of the executive branch and accountable to the legislature, as it should be.

Fraud is pervasive and rampant in this state. It is far from fairy dust. As the fraud cases continue to mount, it is my hope we are moving closer to approving legislation that finally ends this theft of precious taxpayer dollars. This has to stop, and it must stop now.

Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea, is the District 23A representative.