ST. PAUL – Legislation Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, authored is a key component in a comprehensive House proposal to crack down on fraud in Minnesota’s public programs features.
The legislative package is in response to a report from the nonpartisan Office of the Legislative Auditor that found fraud within Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program to be widespread and pervasive. Demuth’s bill (H.F. 1680) requires child care providers receiving CCAP payments to keep daily attendance records on site and make them immediately available upon request.
“Minnesotans deserve to know public programs are operating efficiently and the auditor’s report showed a lack of oversight in the Child Care Assistance Program,” Demuth said. “This package will help stop the fraud, save the money and make sure our tax dollars are used as intended.”
The House proposal has five key goals:
- Increased consequences for committing fraud: Increased penalties and consequences for committing fraud to send a strong message to fraudsters that the state will not tolerate this criminal behavior.
- Provider controls: Provide better controls on the front end to prevent fraud from occurring in the first place.
- Investigations and prosecutions: Give additional tools to investigators to aid in their investigations, and to prosecutors to ensure fraudsters are brought to justice.
- Eligibility reforms: Eliminate eligibility for those found to have committed fraud, require enhanced eligibility checks from the Department of Human Services, and direct savings from eligibility checks to the Health Care Access Fund.
- Oversight: Make the Office of Inspector General become an independent entity as recommended by the legislative auditor.
“As I continue to say, this is not a partisan issue, this is a good-government issue,” Demuth said. “I look forward to developing this discussion and hope we are able to put a plan in place to strengthen child care assistance and other public programs this session.”
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