Stopping the fraud

There are lots of proposals swirling around the state capitol aimed at stopping the fraud rampant throughout state government. Will any of them work? Will any of them gain enough votes to become law?

Yesterday, the House of Representatives’ Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight committee held a hearing on proposals by Gov. Tim Walz to address the crisis.

The Walz proposals include a few ideas that may prove useful at the margins (though not particularly original), such as the licensing of autism clinics. But the bulk of the Walz proposal consists of rearranging boxes on agency org charts and hiring more (unionized) state employees.

A number of items are included that appear to have nothing at all to do with fraud prevention. The frequent use of words like “clarify,” “enhance,” and “enable” signals an extraordinary level of timidity, even for government bureaucrats.

After the hearing, the Republican members of the Fraud Prevention committee held a press conference to announce the creation of a new website, MNFraud.com, a secure site for potential state agency whistleblowers.

For their part, the three Democratic committee members have introduced a 127-page bill, HF 2603, collecting many of the Governor’s proposals into a single document. Let’s pause for a moment.

The Feeding Our Future scandal first broke open in January 2022. The first indictments were handed down in September 2022. In January 2023, Democrats took complete control of state government, which they held for two years, until January 2025. In March 2025, Democrats finally introduced their “anti-fraud” legislation. So “late” it is indistinguishable from “never.”

Regardless, HF 2603 chief author Rep. Dave Pinto (DFL-St. Paul) is quoted on his $39 million plan by Session Daily:

A robust package that builds on what we’ve done in the past.

Umm. What you’ve “done in the past” is to allow $611 million of fraud, waste, and abuse to go out the door.

Pinto’s bill received a hearing in the House State Government Finance committee. At the time of the hearing last week, the bill was so new it had yet to be assigned a bill number before it was rushed in front of the committee.

Officials from seven (7) different state agencies testified in support of adding more bureaucrats to their departments. No action was taken (or even attempted) on the proposal.

What’s the hurry?