WASHINGTON, D.C. (KEYC) – A new congressional report accuses Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison of ignoring widespread fraud in Minnesota’s federally funded social service programs for years — allowing billions of taxpayer dollars to flow to fraudulent actors.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released the report Monday, titled “The Cost of Doing Nothing: How Tim Walz and Keith Ellison Fueled Minnesota’s Fraud Explosion.” The committee says Minnesota officials were aware of credible and systemic fraud as early as 2019 but repeatedly failed to act, despite having the authority to suspend payments and ban fraudulent providers without direction from courts or law enforcement.
According to the report, the failures allowed an estimated $300 million in federal child nutrition funds to be lost. Investigators also say up to $9 billion in Medicaid-related…
IT & DATA SECURITY (MITIGATING THE “INSIDER THREAT”)
As seen in the TD Bank case, an employee with too much “access” can sell your customer data to syndicates.
- Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP): Employees should only have access to the specific folders and databases required for their current task.
- Access Revocation: Have a “Termination Checklist” that ensures all digital access (Email, VPN, Banking) is revoked within 60 minutes of an employee resigning or being dismissed.
- System Logs & Audit Trails: Enable “Read/Write Logging” on your server. If a customer’s data is leaked, you need to know exactly which login accessed that record and at what time.
- Encryption at Rest: Ensure that sensitive files (like your customer ID numbers or payroll spreadsheets) are encrypted so that if a staff member copies them to a USB, they cannot be read.