Anti-fraud bill advances at legislature

This week at the Capitol, HF 1837 was voted out of the House of Representatives’ State Government committee. The legislation represents the committee’s policy bill for the year.

Authored by committee co-chair, state Rep. Ginny Klevorn (DFL-42B, Plymouth), the bill advanced to the House floor for further consideration. Session Daily highlights some of the provisions contained within:

• the head of any state agency could withhold payments to a program participant in any program administered by that agency if the agency head determines there is a credible allegation of fraud under investigation and the program participant is a subject of the investigation
• a government entity could disclose any data to another government entity or law enforcement if the data relates to public program fraud
• state employees would receive better whistleblower protection when reporting state program information, including suspected fraud

You would have thought that all of the above provisions were already included in state law. But, here we are.

Because HF 1837 serves as a general-purpose policy bill, it includes a provision naming the giant beaver as the state fossil,

Could it have been anything else? No, I don’t think so. I do have one recommended change to Section 1: in Subdivision 2, replace the “may” with “must.”

Fox 9 reports that the giant beaver initiative is a project of middle school students.