Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is responding to the FBI's recent raid of the state's Housing Stabilization Services program, designed to help find housing for older adults and people with disabilities, including substance use disorder and mental illness.
Investigators executed searched warrants on five Twin Cities providers at eight locations who they say fraudulently claimed to provide many hours of services when they hadn't.
"If you're going to commit these crimes in Minnesota, you are going to get caught," Walz said in an exclusive interview with WCCO's Susie Jones on Thursday.
The governor says anti-fraud measures have been put in place to detect and prevent Medicaid fraud and they will continue to work with law enforcement to hold "bad actors" accountable.
"You're always gonna find people trying to cheat the system," Walz tells WCCO. "But I think this legislative session with a, you know, the new IG (Inspector General) that's over there, the new tools that we have, and just the capacity for us. And I wish we would have got a little more. The one thing I wish we would have got it, there are some AI tools out there that would help us on this."
Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson says Minnesota has a fraud problem, thoughts his predecessor in the office, Andrew Luger, has previously echoed. Thompson says it warrants another step in a much bigger reckoning for the state.
The FBI raid earlier this week involves the state's Medicaid-funded Housing Stabilization Services program, which is supposed to help find and maintain housing for older adults and people with disabilities. That includes substance use disorder and mental illness.
Walz says the program is indicitive of how Minnesotans have tried to care for those in need, adding the state needs to continue to crack down on people who try to take advantage of the system.
"Minnesota is a generous state and I think there is a tendency to err on the side of making sure children get food, making sure people have housing stabilization," Walz explained. "But I've told our agencies and things that - we can have best intentions, but there are bad folks that are trying to do this."
FBI investigators executed searched warrants on five Twin Cities providers at eight locations earlier this week according to U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson. In the warrant, the FBI says the housing program has "proved to be extremely vulnerable to fraud." They are located throughout the Twin Cities, including in St. Paul, Roseville, Blaine, Little Canada and Woodbury.
Walz has already been met with harsh criticism from state Republicans over more fraud being discovered inside state programs, joining the massive Feeding Our Future fraud case, and an investigation connected to that at Minnesota autism centers.
Rep. Kristin Robbins (R-Maple Grove), Chair of the House Fraud and State Agency Oversight Committee, says in a statement that this latest case represents an "enormous failure" by the Walz administration to protect taxpayers.
"This follows the same pattern the Fraud Committee has been highlighting for months: Minnesota expands unregulated Medicaid services and fraudsters jump in to exploit lax oversight by DHS to steal millions from taxpayers and the poor," says Robbins.