(Photo courtesy of the Office of the Governor via the Minnesota Reformer)
(Minnesota Reformer) – As scrutiny intensifies over how fraudsters in recent years bilked Minnesota safety net programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars, officials in Gov. Tim Walz’s administration have been meeting monthly to share data and develop best practices in an effort to prevent fraud in public programs, they said during a briefing Monday.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension highlighted the duties of the Office of Inspector General Coordinating Council, which Walz established through a September executive order.
Officials held the briefing days after a federal prosecutor estimated that fraud in state-run Medicaid programs since 2018 could total over $9 billion. Since then, Walz and officials with the Department of Human Services — which administers the Medicaid programs — have cast doubt on the prosecutor’s estimate.
On Friday, Walz said the $9 billion fraud estimate was “sensationalized,” publicized without evidence and a number created by the Trump administration.
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