Today Governor Tim Walz announced yet another inept attempt to address fraud, without holding anyone accountable or taking meaningful action to improve the systemic failures that led to more than a billion dollars being stolen from taxpayers.

“Today’s announcement is more of the same from Walz, it’s all talk and no walk. A statewide director of program integrity isn’t something you need when your commissioners are doing their jobs well in the first place,” Republican State Senator Jordan Rasmusson (Fergus Falls) said. “Governor Walz had seven years to improve program integrity but failed in multiple agencies across dozens of programs. We don’t even have permanent DHS commissioner after nearly a year, but somehow, we have time to create and hire a new position to oversee every program? It’s yet another flurry of action without any real changes.

“Minnesotans expect their government to provide vigorous oversight of our welfare programs. This is the second outside vendor called in to help and that demonstrates Governor Walz simply has no idea how to run government with strict oversight and accountability,” Rasmusson concluded.

“Adding another political appointee who reports directly to Governor Walz won’t fix the fraud problem,” Senate Republican Leader Mark Johnson (East Grand Forks) commented. “Governor Walz is responsible for a steady decline of oversight, accountability, and program integrity in state government. Under his watch, families are getting hammered with major tax increases while billions in waste and fraud go unchecked. We’re all tired of the fraud headlines, and this latest effort is just an attempt to cover up his failed record.”