What changed during COVID?
This page holds each version of the COVID explanation up against the audit record, one claim at a time. The pandemic was real. The money nearly quintupled and the monitoring rules genuinely changed. The open question is whether that explains what happened.
What the auditor concluded
The Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) examined exactly this question for the child-nutrition programs, the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), run by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). It answered in one sentence.
“It was MDE’s choices that made monitoring waivers a source of reduced oversight, not the waivers themselves.”
Office of the Legislative Auditor, special review of the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)’s oversight of Feeding Our Future, Chapter 3
What COVID changed
These are real, documented, and not in dispute.
The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)’s payments to nonprofit sponsors in the two child-nutrition programs (CACFP and SFSP) rose 382 percent in state fiscal year 2021, from nearly $70 million to almost $336 million. The Legislative Auditor describes combined payments as having "nearly quintupled."
Nationwide waivers changed monitoring requirements for state agencies and sponsors and encouraged offsite reviews and other forms of oversight. A Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) official told the auditor the waivers made some pre-pandemic oversight activities, such as observing meal service, difficult. They also made once-clear fraud indicators, like perfect attendance at an infant care site, more ambiguous.
The Legislative Auditor reported that "according to one MDE official, the department lacked the staff it needed to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic." (MDE is the Minnesota Department of Education.) That is an attributed statement, not an audited finding.
What predated COVID
Each of these is dated before the pandemic, or was a choice the waivers did not require.
The Legislative Auditor wrote that "we think MDE failed to act on warning signs known to the department prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and prior to the start of the alleged fraud."
In 2017, the Minnesota Court of Appeals’ Partners in Nutrition decision encouraged the department to codify its application-review criteria (“in state administrative rules,” in the Legislative Auditor’s words). After that decision, "MDE neither requested changes to statutes nor pursued rulemaking authority." That was three years before the pandemic.
MDE asked Feeding Our Future for information about its finances and internal controls in September 2020. "Feeding Our Future did not provide this information to MDE. MDE approved Feeding Our Future’s 2021 CACFP application anyway."
MDE did not have a general counsel until January 2022, after the FBI raids.
Said by: Education Commissioner Willie Jett, in the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)’s June 7, 2024 response letter inside the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) report.The review the letter responds to found the opposite. It wrote that "we think MDE failed to act on warning signs known to the department prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and prior to the start of the alleged fraud." It also documents MDE approving Feeding Our Future’s 2021 application after the sponsor refused a September 2020 request for financial information.Official retrospective report source:Legislative Auditor
What no audit evaluated
Questions no audit has answered, in either direction.
Whether the waivers were justified. The Legislative Auditor wrote that "we did not evaluate whether these waivers were justified." No other audit has.
Whether MDE was actually understaffed for its pandemic workload. The staffing statement in the record belongs to one MDE official and was not audited.
Whether the fraud would have happened without COVID. How the scheme was built (sponsor self-reporting, site claims, shell vendors) is documented. I have not found a record that says whether it would have worked without the pandemic.
Said by: Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) officials, as reported by the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA).The OLA reports that "when MDE asked questions of USDA ... USDA sometimes responded verbally or did not respond in a timely manner," attributed to MDE officials. The OLA did not audit USDA’s responsiveness.Official retrospective report source:Legislative Auditor
The 2020 confirmation votes
During the pandemic's emergency-powers standoff, the Republican-controlled Senate removed two Walz commissioners and left others unconfirmed. No source connects these votes to program oversight. The possible link is stated below as a hypothesis.
August 12, 2020
Nancy Leppink
Department of Labor and Industry
Removed, 34-32
The Republican-controlled Senate voted not to confirm her during a one-day special session tied to the emergency-powers fight. Majority Leader Paul Gazelka cited her performance, and Governor Walz called it "political payback."
September 11, 2020
Steve Kelley
Department of Commerce
Removed, 31-33
The Senate rejected his confirmation in the fourth special session of 2020, over the agency’s appeal of the Line 3 pipeline approval. The Reformer describes leaving appointees unconfirmed as leverage in the emergency-powers standoff.
August 12, 2020
Jan Malcolm
Department of Health
Threatened, never voted out
The Senate left her confirmation pending through the pandemic, and Walz said publicly he worried Republicans would target her next. No removal vote ever came.
The child-nutrition programs at the center of Feeding Our Future are administered by the Minnesota Department of Education, and Medicaid (Medical Assistance) by the Department of Human Services. Labor and Industry, Commerce, and Health, the three agencies in the 2020 confirmation fights, administered none of the defrauded programs.
Did confirmation politics contribute to the oversight failure?
Two commissioners were removed by Senate confirmation votes in 2020. Labor and Industry was removed 34-32 against confirmation in August, and Commerce was removed 31 for and 33 against in September. The health commissioner's confirmation was left pending amid public threats. Reporting describes unconfirmed appointees as leverage in the emergency-powers fight. None of the three agencies administered the defrauded programs. CACFP and SFSP run through MDE, and Medicaid runs through the Department of Human Services (DHS).
A confirmation environment in which commissioners could be removed over unrelated disputes chilled or distracted agency leadership, including at agencies never voted on, during the window when oversight decisions mattered most.
The OLA attributes the oversight failures to MDE's own choices. Some predate the 2020 confirmation fights, such as the unanswered 2017 court notice. Another, the October 2020 approval of Feeding Our Future's application after the sponsor did not provide requested financial information, came after them. The OLA attributes it to MDE's own decisions.
Any causal link between Senate confirmation votes and MDE or DHS oversight decisions. No source in this record asserts one.
People charged but not convicted are presumed innocent, and amounts labeled alleged come from charging documents, not proven losses. Method and corrections