Tim Walz On The Hot Seat
Gov.Tim Walz is spiraling. And I’m here for it.
Here’s a clip from yesterday’s press conference where he declared that even as the welfare scandal grows in Minnesota he will not resign.
Hmmmm. That’s reminiscent of Joe Biden’s bluster after his disastrous June 2024 debate when he vowed to stay in the race.
Days later, he was out.
Don’t you love the way he pivots from the metastatic scandal in his state to the January 6th riot at the Capitol? Democrats still milk that date. Heck, it’s a high holy day for leftists.
Then again, what else do they have?
But even as Walz engaged in blame shifting - attacking the thousands of DHS agents who are combing Minneapolis, the state’s legislative auditor released even more damning data on state-sanctioned grift in Minnesota, where public money is handled with all the care of a drunk in a strip club.
In a late-breaking story yesterday, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported on the scandal, exposing Minnesota officials who mismanaged money meant for treatment and mental health and then fabricated documents to conceal the truth.
The state Office of the Legislative Auditor has long warned of weak oversight and poor financial controls in various social services programs. Now, with a national spotlight on investigators’ growing tally of fraud in Minnesota, auditors found another area where taxpayer dollars are not being properly managed.
But, in this review, they encountered something that Legislative Auditor Judy Randall said was “frankly unacceptable,” and that she had not previously seen in her more than 27 years doing the work.
Randall told lawmakers at a Jan. 6 meeting of the Legislative Audit Commission that there were systemic issues where staff failed to do proper documentation and, when auditors sought information, they created documents and backdated them to look like they had been done earlier.
A DHS grant manager who authorized $672,000 in payments left the state agency a few days later and started providing consulting services to the grantee. Legislators said Tuesday they want to change state law to prevent that from happening again.
Behavioral health staff couldn’t demonstrate they conducted 27 out of the 67 grantee monitoring visits the auditors checked on. The majority of the visits they did do were conducted remotely. Auditors did some in-person site visits and found “serious concerns” with a grantee and two subcontractors.
There were missing or past-due progress reports for more than half of the grant agreements auditors reviewed.
There were incomplete financial reconciliations in 63 of the 71 grant agreements they checked. Financial reconciliation involves comparing reimbursement requests with supporting documentation, such as payroll or bank records.
A survey of behavioral health staff found 73% said they did not get sufficient training before they began managing behavioral health grants. Just 19% said they completely understood how to do financial reconciliation.
Next up: Widespread voting irregularities in Minnesota, which has some of the most lax voting laws in the country.
Walz can’t politically survive this. And I’m here for every minute of what’s coming.
