The recent news coming out of St. Paul is troubling.

Last week a non-partisan audit revealed “serious mismanagement and lost taxpayer revenue” in Minnesota. The audit claims that the Department of Human Services has not attempted to recover more than $40 million in outstanding overpayments to medical assistance providers’ accounts. Also, the department has not accurately reported its accounts receivable balance to Minnesota Management and Budget for inclusion in the state’s financial statements since 2019.

According to a Star Tribune article, some of these debts appear to date back to 2006 with “murky or incomplete records.”

DHS Commissioner Jodi Harpstead responded to the audit. She agreed with many of the findings, but said it’s challenging “to recover from providers who are no longer billing Medicaid and are often no longer in business.”

Meanwhile, the audit made a couple recommendations:

• The Department of Human Services should recover outstanding overpayments from Medical Assistance providers.

• The Department of Human Services should improve internal controls to ensure that it regularly pursues collection of provider overpayments.

Of course state Republicans quickly pounced on the news and blasted the Democrats. State Rep. Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent, was among several Republicans to email statements on the audit. “A lack of accountability and sloppy accounting have taken root in Minnesota’s agencies with Democrats in full control of the Capitol the last two years,” Swedzinski said. “This highlights the importance of having two-party control and underscores how good it is Republicans have gained equal power in the House. We’ll demand more from our agencies, working to increase accountability and add more guardrails to protect taxpayers.”

State Rep. Paul Anderson, R-Starbuck, is also calling for heightened state agency accountability.

“If there’s one thing Minnesotans deserve with their tax dollars, it is to know the state is using proper accounting methods to protect against waste and fraud,” Anderson said. “Taxpayers should expect nothing less and it’s unfortunate to learn, once again, our government is failing Minnesotans in that regard. This will be a big topic of discussion for the upcoming legislative session. We not only owe it to Minnesota taxpayers to take better care of their dollars, but it should be the first step toward resolving the $5 billion shortfall that’s projected for our state down the road.”

The recent audit comes on the heels of other unfortunate developments:

• In 2019 the Minnesota Department of Human Resources was found to overpaid $29 million to Native American tribes

• In 2023 the Minnesota Department of Education apparent lack of oversight was found to have played role in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud case.

In light of the recent announcement of an economic forecast projecting a dwindling state budget surplus, Anderson’s assessment of the situation is spot on. The forecast predicts a $616 million surplus through the 2026-27 biennium, which is a decrease of $1.1 billion form previous estimates. The forecast also reveals a deficit of more than $5 billion through the 2028-29 biennium. The bottom line is the state can’t afford to allow such blatant fraud and waste to continue to occur. Gov. Tim Walz must make it a priority to work with the Legislature to ensure safeguards are put in place in our state agencies that protect taxpayer monies. The state just can’t afford to throw away hard-earned taxpayer money.