Yesterday, former Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles published a commentary in the Minnesota Star Tribune under the headline,
Former legislative auditor: Is the Walz administration finally awake about fraud?
The recent messes in state programs represent failures in the executive branch and among some legislators.
It’s the “some legislators” part that should raise eyebrows. The occasion of Nobles’ piece was in response to a recent commentary on his successor in the Auditor post (OLA), Judy Randall.
Her interview on the subject of state fraud crises jogged some memories lose for Nobles. He writes in paragraph 6,
While executive officials were obviously negligent, less obvious is the fact that some key legislators tried to minimize the fraud problem and shield the Department of Human Services [DHS] and the Walz administration from criticism.
Tell me more,
For example, when the Office of the Legislative Auditor issued a report on child care fraud, the then-chair of the House Human Services committee dismissed the report and the problem, saying, “there’s always going to be fraud,” and she refused to allow OLA to present its report to the committee.
The OLA’s report on child care subsidy fraud was issued in March 2019. American Experiment covered the report when it first came out. In a March 2019 story, MPR News quoted then-Chair of the House’s Human Services committee Tina Liebling (DFL-Rochester),
We need to be very careful when we start accusing people and accusing entire communities really of being less than concerned about where our public money is going.
Rep. Liebling continues to serve in the legislature. In his commentary, Nobles recalls another 2019 event,
As like-minded House members joined in criticizing OLA for investigating allegations of fraud in human service programs, I met with [then] Speaker Melissa Hortman. As always, she was thoughtful and supportive of OLA’s work but acknowledged that some members of her caucus were upset. They felt that OLA reports were subjecting human service programs to too much criticism, particularly programs administered by Somali community organizations.
“Too much criticism” of DHS programs? Six years later it turns out to have been far too little. Billions of dollars’ worth of new frauds have gone out the door since the OLA’s March 2019 report.
That report struck a nerve and Democrats are still smarting over it. When I testified in front of the new House Fraud Prevention committee back in March 2025, committee Democrats went out of their way to trash the then-six-year-old OLA report.
The most explosive claim made by Nobles about the late Speaker Hortman from 2019,
[Hortman] did, however, acknowledge that House committee chairs had been instructed not to give OLA reports about fraud any public hearings.
“Instructed.” We find out after the fact that Democrats actively covered up reports of fraud in state government. Had those report received the airing they deserved way back when, billions of taxpayer dollars could have been saved.
Now it can be told.
