Open Letter: Advice for MN’s New Director of Program Integrity
To: Tim O’Malley
Director, Program Integrity
State Capitol
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
Dear Director O’Malley:
Boy, do you have your work cut out for you! Gov. Walz appointed you last month to the brand-new position of director of program integrity to strengthen fraud prevention. An agricultural metaphor may be appropriate: locking the barn door after the horses are out. The problem in Minnesota is not that you’re dealing with one barn, but many open barns. Some of these barns have names: Feeding Our Future, Housing Stabilization Services, Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention, Integrated Community Supports program, and others to be named in forthcoming indictments.
It is not helpful to claim that a single group of people (in this telling, Somalis) are responsible for all the fraud. First of all, it’s not true. The organizer of the Feeding Our Future fraud was a white woman, Aimee Bock. Many of the victims of these frauds are Somalis. Some of the cases that have been opened are in Medicaid programs treating addiction and do not involve the Somali community at all.
There was a time when all Italian Americans were assumed to be involved in criminal enterprises (The Godfather is not a documentary). Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps during World War II. German Americans were so distrusted in the wake of World War I that it was a prohibited act in Minnesota and many other states to teach the German language in public schools.
Attributing a common criminality to “the other” has a shameful history in the United States. It also has a truly American conclusion; hyphenated Americans drop the hyphen and become valued and functioning citizens of our democracy. So one thing that really angers us about the massive fraud scandals in social services is that it allows some demagogues to stigmatize “other” Americans. We assume, Director O’Malley, that you will not make this mistake.
There are other aspects of the fraud scandals that make us angry. Most of us who write large checks are not overjoyed at paying high taxes, but on a good day, we believe we receive fair value for the payments with a highly productive workforce. The thought that some of these tax dollars are going to fraudsters, however, is blood-pressure-raising!
Unfortunately, allegations of fraud become political, and, because they are political, the underlying problems often get forgotten after the election is over. Minnesota will have a new governmental administration next year, and there is no guarantee that your office will be continued or that long-term and long-needed structural reform will survive after the electoral season. And so, Director O’Malley, a few suggestions:
Much of the fraud has been alleged to have taken place via third-party providers—to date, no state employee has been accused of fraudulent involvement. We should look hard and fast at the state taking over delivery of some of the social service safety net.
It is infuriating that approximately half of the initial defendants in the Feeding Our Future scandal continued to receive payments from other Minnesota social welfare programs. We would hope that new social service programs must include detailed audit and oversight guidelines and responsibilities. Each new program (and, of course, existing programs) should be announced with these guidelines and audit responsibilities clearly spelled out. The state has recently implemented a new program of paid family leave. It does not take a great deal of imagination to project what kind of abuse could occur. Yet when the program was announced, no inspector general, no oversight guidelines, and no anti-fraud obligations were to be found in the announcement. Director O’Malley, put an end to announcements that don’t include an inspector general, oversight guidelines, and anti-fraud obligations.
There is another issue with all of these fraud matters: Nobody was fired. Any businessperson reading this column would know what action they would take if a fraction of this activity occurred in any company over which they had control. Gov. Walz, at one of his press conferences, noted that former top staffers at the Department of Human Services (DHS) and Department of Education should have been more skeptical of fraud. This is not to imply criminal behavior, but we need cultural change in those state agencies that oversee—or should oversee—social services. We would expect that your recommendations will include cultural and structural reforms of these agencies. A good place to start would be a review of the Legislative Auditor’s reports starting with 2019, when DHS became a regular subject of critique.
Legacy print media are now dusting off the type once used for headlines like “U.S. Declares War” for each new fraud allegation. As this column is being written, the then-first assistant U.S. attorney alleged that up to $9 billion of additional fraud has been uncovered, so you can expect to see daily reminders of your job. Director of integrity, welcome aboard and lots of luck. Do you have a tip line?
Sincerely yours,
Vance K. Opperman
Fed Up
