Last Wednesday, my colleague, Bill Glahn, wrote that KSTP had found that there are 62 fraud investigations currently underway involving federally-funded Minnesota child care centers.
Two days later, he wrote:
Yesterday, KARE-11 TV ran a new story in their investigative series on the addiction treatment industry in Minnesota. This time, KARE-11 uncovers what appears to be a massive overbilling scandal involving the large addiction treatment nonprofit NUWAY.
Today, Bill writes that:
Yesterday, the Minnesota Star Tribune committed an act of journalism in reporting on another significant fraud scandal in state government. This one involves a program called Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) and is overseen by the state Dept. of Human Services (DHS).
Bill’s Minnesota Scandal Tracker is now up over $600 million. “Minnesota has a fraud problem,” outgoing U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andy Luger said recently. “No other states have had the kinds of problems we’ve had with government fraud.”
This constant hemorrhaging of vast piles of taxpayer’s hard earned cash to any scoundrel with the chutzpah to try it on represents a problem for a state facing a $5 billion budget deficit a couple of years from now. To begin getting to grips with it, in January House Republicans established a Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy committee, chaired by Rep. Kristin Robbins (R-37A, Maple Grove).
Then, on January 24, the Friday before the Monday this committee was due to hold its first meeting, the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the DFL and shut the House down: The Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy committee was aborted.
Furthermore, the committee cannot be reformed until the DFL Representatives emerge from hiding and go to work. As of today, they are still refusing to do that and pocketing $15,000 daily in the meantime. Perhaps Bill should add the $316,000 the DFL Reps have taken so far for doing nothing except delay important work like the formation of the Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy committee to the Scandal Tracker.