August 2025 APG Column
Carolyn Treadway
We know with certainty that waste and fraud in government will be a hot issue in the year ahead. The surest sign that politicians are going to talk about an issue is when we hear them saying the issue isn’t partisan.
All of us —Republicans, Democrats, Independents — are concerned about fraud. One that is at the forefront in Minnesota is the much-publicized Feeding Our Future program. The scoundrels behind that program defrauded taxpayers out of $250 million in federal funding intended for child nutrition programs during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before the pandemic, the Minnesota Department of Education/MDE (which was tasked with overseeing the Feeding Our Future program) randomly checked food sites that they administered on behalf of the federal government. But that requirement was waived by the feds during the pandemic.
Some have forgotten the desperate times that ensued during the pandemic. Businesses, schools, restaurants, food shelves, churches, and government offices abruptly shut down. Workers lost paychecks. Families didn’t have food. Businesses and restaurants were bleeding losses. Programs to help vulnerable people were needed as soon as possible. The federal government acted quickly to provide a wide variety of assistance. Federal funds were passed to state governments to distribute.
Problems arose with these pop-up programs that were intended to protect public health and keep the economy stable. State workers, who would normally provide program oversight, were furloughed while the federal government relaxed regulations for state allocations of federal pandemic funding.
In the words of Associated Press reporter Richard Lardner, “Economies were in free fall so the standard safeguards that normally protect federal money from going to the wrong people were lowered…they [fraudsters] saw an opportunity for an easy payday, and they grabbed it.”
Fraud schemes targeted programs in all 50 states. Indeed, the U.S. Department of Justice found that healthcare fraud alone across the United States totaled over $14.6 BILLION! Everything from child nutrition to rental assistance and restaurant revitalization programs were targets for fraud. There is no definitive total for pandemic fraud against the U.S. government, but estimates range from hundreds of billions to as high as $1 trillion.
The three most commonly defrauded programs were Unemployment Insurance, which lost between $100-$135 Billion, while the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) as well as the Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs lost a combined $200 Billion. The state of New York alone experienced $1 Billion in Unemployment Insurance fraud! Pandemic era fraud certainly wasn’t limited to Minnesota.
It’s tempting to blame Gov. Walz and his administration for the massive Feeding Our Future fraud. As political analyst Chuck Johnson said, “It was a perfect storm. A pandemic. Kids who needed access to food while schools were closed. A small [MDE] program with limited federal oversight and state administrative capacity and authority to stop the fraud once they identified it. A federal agency [DOJ] that did not act quickly when informed of MDE’s concerns. Criminals who sought to exploit the situation to steal money intended to feed children. The ‘what ifs’ in this scenario are endless.”
The good news is that in bipartisan legislation, Gov. Walz and the 2025 Legislature addressed Minnesota state agencies’ lack of authority and resources to address fraud. Furthermore, Inspector Generals are being added to agencies and tighter grant requirements are being initiated.
Unfortunately, effective practices weren’t in place at the state or federal level during the pandemic. In the words of one pundit, “Everyone runs lean until it’s too late.”
Yep. Minnesota learned from this perfect storm and is better-prepared for moving forward. Let’s not allow politicians to rewrite history about a tragic snatch of funding that should have gone to Minnesota children.
