Watchdog politics: Why Minnesota may punt on an inspector general’s office

On Thursday Sens Heather Gustafson DFL-Vadnais Heights and Michael Kreun R-Blaine trumpeted that a bill to create an inspector general for the state of Minnesota cleared the Senate on a convincing - vote We have already made substantial strides in fighting fraud in Minnesota but this day filled the gap that was desperately missing Gustafson notified reporters at a press conference after the vote We look forward to its implementation getting this passed into law so we can get the fraud out of the headlines here in Minnesota Kreun added But the bill will apparently not become law despite the strong Senate endorsement The divided House has not made an IG a priority I don t think there s a lot of interest in that one Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman DFL-Brooklyn Park mentioned in an interview Monday before she met with lawmakers on crafting a state budget with just a week left in the scheduled legislative session And Gov Tim Walz has signaled that an IG office may not be the best use of state money The lesson here is not that Walz Hortman and her House colleagues secretly love fraud They presumably did not get a kick out of the criminal convictions handed down in the Feeding Our Futures scenario or eagerly pass around pictures last year of the FBI raiding multiple autism clinics in Minnesota that receive Medicaid money What the lesson might be is that Walz and lawmakers face a dilemma They feel pressure to show the masses they are doing something new to fight fraud But past governors and Legislatures also felt this pressure and created their own watchdog tools making new proposals like an IG potentially redundant What is the Office of Inspector General proposal The Gustafson-Kreun bill creates an advisory commission of eight state lawmakers who are effectively the IG hiring committee They vet and interview candidates before selecting an IG who is then approved in a House and Senate vote Sen Heather Gustafson DFL-Vadnais Heights and Sen Michael Kreun R-Blaine spoke with reporters Thursday May at the State Capitol about a bill that would create a new state Office of the Inspector General IG Credit MinnPost photo by Matthew Blake The IG serves a five-year term while reporting back to this legislative commission The office would have an estimated budget of million in fiscal years and much of it from the hiring of full-time employees to assist in investigations The IG is supposed to initiate investigations of state executive branch agencies and programs to identify fraud and then propose recommendations for rooting out noted fraud Initiating investigations and recommending changes is already the mandate of the Office of Legislative Auditor OLA which has been around since Related Why everyone around state ruling body is talking about OLA One difference between the proposed IG and the actual OLA is that the IG may establish a law enforcement agency the bill reads to conduct statewide investigations and to make statewide arrests when instances of waste fraud and abuse are uncovered The OLA cannot make arrests The IG can also recommend a state agency freeze funding on a particular scheme or provision When inquired at the press conference about how the offices are different Gustafson declared the OLA is a bit more on the reactive side instead of the proactive side and we would work in conjunction with them Where else would a accomplishable IG overlap with existing parts of executive I ll try to keep this short The departments of Coaching Human Services and Children Youth Families agencies that make up about of state spending already have their own inspectors general who are also supposed to initiate investigations and recommend changes in procedures or procedure Human Services administers Health Assistance Minnesota s version of the sprawling federal-state Medicaid operation As part of its agreement with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services CMS DHS is required to identify investigate and refer suspected fraud cases CMS does not let DHS delegate its watchdog duties to another arm of state executive Also it is the federally-mandated duty of DHS to terminate relationships with fraudulent wellness care providers In other words DHS already makes decisions on funding freezes It is unclear whether CMS would approve either delegated or supervised investigative jurisdiction over Medicaid Shireen Gandhi temporary commissioner for DHS wrote in a letter last week to the Senate Finance Committee We are not aware of any other state that operates in this manner In response Kreun amended the IG bill on the Senate floor In the revised rule CMS must first approve of the Minnesota IG s jurisdiction over the Health Assistance venture Also The IG cannot do anything that would prevent the state from receiving federal financial participation for the Therapeutic Assistance operation the amended bill reads State Sen Melissa Wiklund I think we were as accommodating as we could possibly be Kreun explained at the press conference adding that where we couldn t go is to outright stop the IG from exploring Clinical Assistance since Medicaid fraud has been where a lot of the fraud is coming from So let s say the federal administration OKs a new office assessing Biological Assistance In that scenario Sen Melissa Wiklund DFL-Bloomington raised concerns about How it will work to have multiple entities analyzing complex programs Alternatively the feds could not approve the prospective law and the state suddenly has an IG office legally prohibited from inspecting Minnesota s costliest social facility initiative Sen John Hoffman DFL-Champlin chairs the Senate Human Services Committee on Wednesday April Credit MinnPost photo by Matthew Blake Sen John Hoffman DFL-Champlin and chair of the Senate Human Services Committee explained on the Senate floor Thursday that the IG bill is not ready for prime time At least an IG would have the unique ability to arrest people Well no The Minnesota Attorney General s Office has broad latitude to criminally prosecute suspected fraudsters In the situation of Biological Assistance the AG s office already has a Medicaid Fraud Control Unit whose investigations often come from referrals by DHS As the Star Tribune announced in January the unit announced convictions in a figure higher than Medicaid related-convictions in more populous states such as Illinois In fact a bill to add funding for the AG Medicaid unit including boosting the staffing count from to people passed off the House floor It may end up as part of the state ruling body budget bill Other fraud-related proposals from Walz and lawmakers including a financial crimes unit at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension may also be part of spending bills But with Walz and lawmakers racing the clock to complete a budget fraud concerns may be set aside The post Watchdog politics Why Minnesota may punt on an inspector general s office appeared first on MinnPost