How Hennepin County officials say they prevented $2 million in fraud
As Minnesota continues to deal with the fallout of major fraud, Hennepin County can point to something they did right.
Leaders say they caught fraud as it was happening and prevented $2 million of taxpayer money from going to criminals.
Both the state and the county use nonprofits to help administer millions of dollars in grants.
In the now infamous case, the state used the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Hennepin County used a nonprofit called Next Stage, but the money was handled very differently.
"I think one difference is that the county, we don't pay things in advance. So you only get, if you can prove you paid rent and you need to get reimbursed for it for this part of this program, you have to provide proof. So we didn't just trust people upfront," said Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde.
Hennepin County staffers were in daily contact with the nonprofit, which was not the case with the state and Feeding our Future.
"So we were working hand-in-hand with them. They started to notice very curious things that turned out to be not so curious and more about fraudulent attempts, where things like checks were all the same check number," said Lunde. "Just dozens, maybe hundreds of applicants were using the same check to prove rent paid."
Red flags like this were immediately reported to supervisors like Lunde, who took action
"We were like, wait a minute, so we started to require more information from Next Stage to go acquire," he said.
Lunde said he encountered examples where people invented fictitious companies.
"I think that's the most brazen because you're almost double dog daring someone to go, go check it out. If you're just on the internet, you're like, oh, it looks legit," Lunde said. "Next Stage and our staff went to site visits. They went to, no, you got to come in. We need to see in person."
Nothing has happened yet to those suspected of fifiling fraudulent applicaiton. The paperwork has been submitted to the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. Some of the suspects could face misdemeanors.
Lunde says he would like to see the legislature create some tougher penalties for fraudulent applications.
