Rep. Fogelman Opposes Governor Walz’s Human Services Reform Plan That Gives Even More Authority to The Administration

ST. PAUL – Is the answer to Minnesota’s fraud problem giving more authority to the people who let it thrive in the first place?

Governor Walz believes the answer is yes, as he recently unveiled a plan to centralize control over Medicaid spending inside the Department of Human Services (DHS).

“This is an agency that has accosted fraud whistleblowers and backdated documents to dodge independent scrutiny,” said State Representative Marj Fogelman (R-Fulda). “We need more independent eyes looking for fraud, not more people from within trying to cover things up.”

As part of the governor’s “transformation” of human services, Managed Care Organizations would be eliminated to give recipient eligibility decisions to DHS. Fogelman said this decision will lead to the hiring of many more permanent state employees, which will add to Minnesotans’ tax burden as the state already faces a more than $3 billion deficit in the next budget cycle.

Fogelman said one area that needs to be addressed is the modernization of the technology our counties use to implement programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid. She said the 30-to-40-year-old software is outdated, inefficient, and doing next to nothing to help identify potential fraudsters.

“What is maddening is that an all Democrat-led government had an $18 billion budget surplus two years ago, and increased taxes by another $10 billion, and still refused to address this problem,” Fogelman said. “We need to find a way to modernize this technology as soon as possible.”