Warning signs on the record

In July 2020, Minnesota launched Housing Stabilization Services, projecting the new Medicaid benefit would cost about $2.6 million a year.In 2024 alone the program paid $104 million, about 40 times the $2.6 million annual projection. Spending growth alone is not fraud. Some of that growth was real unmet need. But the gap between projection and payout is the kind of variance a program-integrity review exists to explain.The check that should have caught it: A review of payments sized to a brand-new benefit that any provider could join. Claims were not checked before payment. The state’s prepayment review of high-risk services began in December 2025, after this program had already ended.Secondary source:FOX 9

During the pandemic, meal sites reported their attendance to the state on paper, through rosters and invoices reimbursed per meal claimed.Paul Public School District, per the Legislative Auditor. Even after Feeding Our Future did not justify the growth, the department did not visit the sites, virtually or in person.The check that should have caught it: Site monitoring visits were the check that claimed meals were actually served. Pandemic waivers allowed remote alternatives such as desk audits. Even within those rules, the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) found the department’s monitoring inadequate.Primary source:Legislative Auditor

Minnesota’s own checkbook records every payment to Feeding Our Future. In fiscal year 2019, the state paid the sponsor about $1.4 million.Payments are not a fraud amount. A court later attributed $242 million in losses across the scheme’s full span.The check that should have caught it: The paying agency saw the growth and tried to act. The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) stopped payments in early 2021, then resumed them in April 2021 after a judge called its actions “a real problem,” without a court order to do so. The full story is on the oversight page.Primary source:Minnesota Management and Budget

At trial, an FBI agent testified that one Minneapolis restaurant, Safari Restaurant and Event Center, claimed 3.9 million meals across 2020 and 2021 and received $12.1 million.Numbers of this size were sitting in claim submissions across dozens of sites.The check that should have caught it: A check of whether a site could physically serve the meals it claimed. Federal waivers had relaxed the usual site-eligibility checks, and the sponsor vouching for the sites was Feeding Our Future itself.Secondary source:Star Tribune