E&W Blog

In Case You Missed It, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) penned an op-ed for Fox News ripping Governor Walz for overseeing the “greatest grift in U.S. history”—a $250 million scheme that took funds from hungry children. In fact, following the release of a report indicating the Walz administration’s actions and inactions allowed the fraud to continue, Walz said, “We certainly take responsibility for that.” 

Earlier this month, Chairwoman Foxx subpoenaed Governor Walz, Governor Walz’s Minnesota Department of Education, the Biden-Harris administration’s U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and USDA’s Office of Inspector General to uncover how the Governor and the USDA allowed the largest pandemic fraud in the nation to occur.


Tim Walz’s school lunch fiasco got scammed for $250 million right under his nose
Rep. Virginia Foxx
September 23, 2024

The Democrat media and Harris-Walz campaign are working overtime to seize the narrative surrounding the freshly coronated ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz...

You may have noticed the media heaping praise on Walz’s policies as governor, including the universal school lunch legislation he signed in 2023…

The truth is that Walz’s history of providing meals to hungry children isn’t about feeding them at all. Beginning in 2020, Walz allowed a fraud of massive proportions that exploited a taxpayer-funded child nutrition program during the pandemic. Some even called it the "greatest grift in U.S. history."

According to federal prosecutors, a Minnesota-based nonprofit called Feeding Our Future (FOF) committed the nation’s largest pandemic relief fraud. $250 million was stolen from under the nose of Governor Tim Walz and his army of state education bureaucrats. Five defendants have been convicted, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The fraud was conducted as a series of cascading kickbacks based on FOF’s fraudulent reporting to Walz’s administration. FOF’s food sites overrepresented the number of meals they served to hungry children by the thousands, set up shell companies to sell the story and then pocketed the millions in extra cash from reimbursements. 
…
While the scandalous details abound, the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor released a report that breaks down the fraud allegations over 103 plainly written pages….

The report shows that MDE suffers the same affliction as all the overwrought government agencies I oversee: diffuse decision-making that obscures accountability…

Take, for instance, page 55 of the report, which states that "MDE inappropriately asked Feeding Our Future to investigate complaints about itself." …

Or on page 48, the report finds that MDE welcomed loose oversight requirements for high-risk sponsors…

MDE’s hesitancy to exert its authority and oversight responsibilities undermined its ability to sniff out the scandal, creating a powder keg of waste, fraud and abuse waiting to catch fire.

… Wasted tax dollars is never victimless. The $250 million stolen by FOF amounts to over $1600 per child living in poverty in Minnesota. Those funds should be with the children, families, and communities for whom they were meant, not lining the pockets of thieves who were enabled in their fraud by Walz’s MDE’s lack of oversight.

I, along with fellow Committee Chairs, and the Minnesota Republican delegation, wrote to the Minnesota Commissioner of Education requesting more information regarding MDE’s communications. With Walz’s rapid ascension, it is even more important that MDE releases this information to the public.

Read the full op-ed here.