Former Legislative Auditor James Nobles criticizes DFL officials for lack of oversight

Retired Legislative Auditor James Nobles, one of the most honorable people to serve in government, wrote an op-ed in this week's Star Tribune. In the op-ed, Nobles wrote "The late House Speaker Melissa Hortman privately told Minnesota’s longtime legislative auditor that some Democrats believed his office was being too hard on certain state programs, especially those run by Somali community organizations."

According to this Alpha News article, "In Nobles’ op-ed, he calls out what he described as a stunning lack of financial safeguards that has let millions in taxpayer dollars slip away, cheating both taxpayers and the vulnerable families those programs were designed to serve." Anyone that knows Nobles' personality knows that this is as close to a vesuvial moment as you'll see from him. You won't see Mr. Nobles get much more irritated than this.

Nobles' op-ed continues, saying "the theft of millions of tax dollars from Minnesota programs resulted not just from the actions of thieves but also from the failure of state executive officials to implement basic financial safeguards recommended in numerous audit reports for several years."

This is according to the Legislative Auditor's report:

State investigators at the Department of Human Services suspect CCAP fraud in Minnesota amounts to $100 million or more annually. Government investigations have uncovered evidence that individuals in Minnesota have sent CCAP fraud money to foreign countries where terrorist organizations have obtained and used the money to fund their operations.
This news report isi explosive:

It's important to remember that this news report first appeared on Fox9 News 7 years ago. That's virtually the entirety of Tim Walz's administration. How could he not know about this fraud, especially this amount of fraud? Remember that the nonpartisan OLA determined that Minnesota tapayers were losing a suspected "$100,000,000 or more annually." Over 7 year, that's almost $750,000,000 that Minnesota taxpayers lost.

About a month ago, authorities thought that Minnesota had lost $1,000,000,000 in fraud. Based on the OLA report plus the $250,000,000 lost in the Feeding Our Futures scandal, I'd argue that $1,000,000,000 is too conservative.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tim Walz's hostile work environment at DHS

Image
It isn't a secret that Tim Walz is running for a third straight term as Minnesota's governor. What's been a secret up until this tweet appeared is that Tim Walz's Deparment of Human Services is a hostile work environment. According to the tweet, "Tim Walz is utterly dishonest, malicious at heart & has dangerous intent. The 'folksy' public image Tim Walz portrays is not even remotely what he is like to work with. Despite repeated warnings about fraud, Tim Walz opted to ratchet up the retaliation and silence any ethical voices. Besides fraud, Tim Walz has allowed agencies to spend thousands, possibly millions on retaliation efforts to scare, threaten, and silence concerned employees." The tweet continues "Worst of all, despite unprecedented funds awarded or appropriated to DHS, our agency is now a hollow shell of incompetency as our programs have been destroyed & most ethical staff have left." Don't think that this much fraud happ...
Read more

Has Sue Ek come face-to-face with DFL hijinks?

Image
Apparently, Minnesota state and county employees aren't that attentive to details. Last night, a frequent reader of this blog sent me a statement from House Speaker-designate Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring ." She issued the following statement regarding vote tabulation errors, malfunctions, and discrepancies that have taken place in Sherburne and Scott Counties: The errors and discrepancies we've seen this cycle are intolerable and unacceptable. A free and fair election demands sunlight on the process. These incidents fuel distrust and raise questions about the integrity and accuracy of election results. Without an opportunity to observe or respond Sherburne County added newly-found votes to the total. Just a day later, Scott County announced an unspecified "ballot distribution error" and "ballot scanning malfunction" that triggered an abrupt re-scan of more than 20,000 ballots. There was less than two hours notice between the public announcement and the be...
Read more

BREAKING NEWS: counterfeit ballot alert in Minnesota

Image
How Difficult Should it be to Get a Ballot? By John W. Palmer November 4, 2024 Securing an official ballot for your ward and precinct normally requires registration to vote and either showing up at a polling place or securing an absentee ballot. Ballot security is a cornerstone of an election free of fraud. When the tailgate of a vehicle was left open and unattended revealing a large stack of blank ballots, Minnesotans were appalled. Imagine how you would feel when you learn that all it takes to get a reproducible ballot for your ward and precinct is to download a file from a government website. In Stearns and several other Minnesota counties, imagination is not needed. Right now, all you have to do is go to Minnesota’s Secretary of State’s website and download a file. Go to this website and select “Get a sample ballot”. Then enter your zip code and address and your ballot appears. Now you are able to download the ballot as a PDF file. Once you have the PDF file you can print as many ...
Read more