A spokesperson for the MN Department of Health has responded to the rebuke from Judge John Guthmann who said both the Minnesota Department of Education and Governor Walz released false statements on Thursday regarding the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.
In an email Friday evening, they released the following information to WCCO Radio and Drivetime Host Jason DeRusha.
They claim that Feeding Our Future demanded that MDE make payments, and the court made it clear that if MDE were to continue the legal fight to withhold payments, MDE would incur sanctions and legal penalties. The court held MDE in contempt for not processing Feeding Our Future Applications.
The email from MDE provided the following statements from a court transcript and the contempt order quoting Judge Guthmann’s orders.
In its contempt order, the court said: “Only through a strong statement by the Court, accompanied by a meaningful financial consequence, can the Court ensure that MDE will follow its orders.”
The court transcript laid out all of the legal reasons why it believed that MDE could not continue withholding payments and the legal consequences the department would face if it did not resume payment, which MDE says they took as punishable by further contempt or other legal violations:
“And to be honest, Ms. Nogosek (of the state Attorney General's Office), to the extent you are doing that, you're violating my order, and I would find you in contempt.”
“Right. But that reference doesn't allow you to stop paying while those additional conditions are being imposed and complied with. Yes, you can establish additional conditions, but you can only stop paying if those additional conditions cannot – if the deficiencies cannot be remedied by imposing those additional conditions. You can't impose the additional conditions and stop paying before you determine that those additional conditions won't work. You've put the cart before the horse.”
“Based upon the positions you've taken on behalf of the department, the law that's been given to me, you've got a real problem not reimbursing at this stage of the game. You may ultimately have every right to implement the suspension of payments under this regulation based upon whatever it is they're supposed to give you, but the standard that has to be met to entitle the department to stop paying is crystal clear in this regulation. If the federal awarding agency or pass-through entity determines that noncompliance cannot be remedied by imposing additional conditions, the federal awarding agency or pass-through entity may take one or more of the following actions: Based upon the record in front of me today, that state of affairs doesn't exist.”
“Right. But the regulation doesn't allow you to withhold payment while you're seeking that information because 2 CFR § 200.339 doesn't list that as a basis not to pay. So what am I missing?”
Judge Guthmann released a statement Friday afternoon saying he never ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to resume making payments to Feeding our Future after the department had suspended them due to possible fraud. He says all payments made by the department were made voluntarily, without any court order, and that the department told the court Feeding Our Future had resolved the deficiencies that caused them department to temporarily suspend the food reimbursement payments.
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