ST. PAUL - The Minnesota House recently approved legislation that increases the rates for the childcare assistance program (CCAP), which state audits have found has been plagued with large scale fraud.
Because no safeguards were put in place to ensure the funding was going to be properly utilized, State Representative Steve Jacob (R-Altura) opposed the measure.
“We owe it to the taxpayers to ensure that we are not throwing good money after bad,” Jacob said. “Democrats can’t say with certainty that the fraud issue is gone for good, so why would we support the approval of more funds unless we are certain that 100 percent of this money will be properly utilized?”
Jacob said there is little evidence that measures have been put in place to prevent the large-scale fraud that has plagued the CCAP program in the past.
In 2018, the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) was rocked by allegations of fraud exceeding $100 million. For context, in Fiscal Year 2018, the state paid $254 million in subsidies for the program.
Jacob noted that fraud and abuse is occurring in programs statewide. As the newest member of the Legislative Audit Commission, Jacob said he is looking forward to digging into these problems and determine why this is happening.
“I’m looking forward to being part of the solution,” Jacob said. “We can’t keep sending checks to programs that have fraud issues. Taxpayers deserve better.”