Minnesota Audit Uncovers Shocking Issues In Health Grants

The following is political commentary:

I’ve said it ever since the stories of fraud in Minnesota started to surface. Anytime there’s government money, there’s going to be fraud. But, I didn’t realize it was THIS bad.

Yesterday in St. Paul, the Office of the Legislative Auditor released the results of its audit into health grant programs from the Minnesota Department of Human Services. The number that jumped out to me was from the Behavioral Health Administration - 11 of the 18 grant payments from the BHA could not be properly accounted for.

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The Legislative Auditor found major discrepancies in:

• insufficient documentation of payments
• costs not incurred
• costs occurred outside the reimbursement period
• inaccurate costs reported on reimbursement forms

The Auditor, Judy Randall, reported to lawmakers that she believed there were instances when the audit couldn’t find the proper documentation, staff created documents and backdated them to look like they had been done earlier.

There were also some worrisome trends:

• 18 mental health providers had increases in funding of more than 100% during the audit period.
• One grantee saw an increase in funding from $600,000 to $5.6 million. When visited by the auditor, two of the program’s subcontractors could not provide the required documentation for how the money was spent.
• A DHS supervisor approved a large grant to a program, and then became a paid consultant for the same program.
• Employees were not properly trained.
• Oversight was ignored.

I’ve been purposely dragging my feet before jumping on the “everything is fraud” bandwagon. There are too many easy political points to be made. But this is too much. More than half of the programs audited couldn’t provide the required information on where the money went and how it was spent.

I’ve been in enough federal programs to know there’s a lot of paperwork. You have to have accurate records. You have to be accountable because it’s NOT YOUR MONEY. It’s tax money. No one is holding a gun to your head and telling you to take the money. Yes, I know the causes are very worthwhile and necessary, but so is oversight to make sure the money gets to the people who need the help.

I think, outside of the politicians who are running for election, the frustration over this spending is legitimate. We (the taxpayers) understand that some money needs to be spent to help our communities in general, but no one likes to be a walking checkbook.

So, moving forward, I’ll be watching what happens. The state employees who falsified and backdated documents should be let go. The companies or individuals who cannot provide the required documentation should be expected to repay the money. And our legislators from both sides should be held accountable for their lack of oversight. Five years is too long to find out about these problems.