The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) is reported to have lost at least $413 million in taxpayer funding over the last five years, including an overpayment of $29 million to Native American tribes for opioid treatment programs.
According to CBS Minnesota, DHS has no accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money since 2014.
During a recent Minnesota Senate hearing, Jim Nobles, the state’s Legislative Auditor blasted the opioid overpayments and what he sees as the lack of an effective system that allowed them to happen.
“They had no authority to make these payments,” he said. “And we came to the conclusion that it was dysfunction at DHS that caused this problem.”
Among other losses detailed in the report are up to $271 million failing to verify that people enrolling in public health care programs were eligible and up to $72 million in child care fraud.
From its sprawling downtown St. Paul facility and armed with its $17.5 billion budget, DHS oversees thousands of programs for some of the state’s most vulnerable, including programs for food stamps and housing, health care, refugee resettlement, sex offender treatment, gambling, drug addiction and mental health.
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