The Department of Human Services (DHS) doubled in size in recent years, and instead of increased efficiency, there has been headline after headline detailing waste, fraud, and abuse at the agency. In August of 2019, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee spearheaded an effort to get explanations for how the department could have let over $25 million in overpayments slip by and how they were still struggling to investigate the childcare fraud that had happened within the department earlier in the year. Fast forward to 2020, and a few options to fix the agency’s issues (or break it up) have been presented. During this legislative session, the Senate heard two bills to address DHS dysfunction.

The first, Senate File 4128, would transfer the handling of certain DHS grant programs to a new independent state agency (the Department of Direct Care and Treatment, and the Office of Human Services Licensing and Integrity). The bill also requires a third-party auditor to oversee certain grant programs, financial activity, and performance-based budgeting. We want to know where the abundance of taxpayer money is going and have peace of mind that financial mishandling is virtually impossible. Breaking DHS into more manageable pieces will have a positive effect on the care people receive from their providers.

The second bill, Senate File 3929, requires the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) to establish a team of skilled auditors to track and access DHS expenses, making sure that the right amount is going to the right people. The OLA would have access to inner agency information that other contracted-third parties may not. This legislation would utilize the OLA to provide critical information to answer questions about what is going wrong inside DHS.

As these two bills highlight, we need organization and oversight within the DHS. Possible solutions include putting DHS work and spending under a microscope or shrinking the Department to a manageable size. These are current proposals and conversations, and this is a short session, but over the next years these proposals will have merit. The end goal is to make sure our state agencies and departments are working for Minnesotans, not against. I look forward to helping this reform unfold and making departmental changes that will positively affect the lives of many Minnesotans.