The furor around Minnesota’s fraud scandal shows no sign of dying down. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota says $9 billion or more in taxpayer funds may have been stolen across 14 state welfare programs since 2018.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services is the state agency responsible for overseeing the programs at the heart of the scandal. Faye Bernstein has been a DHS employee for two decades, including stints working in contract management and as a compliance officer.
During the early years of Governor Tim Walz’s administration, Bernstein says that she began raising concerns internally at DHS about concerning practices that exposed tax dollars to fraud. In response, Bernstein claims that her DHS supervisors retaliated against her.
In a recent interview with City Journal, Bernstein painted a picture of a toxic workplace culture at DHS that allowed Minnesota’s fraud scandal to metastasize. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
City Journal: When did your concerns about fraud begin?
Faye Bernstein: In 2018 and 2019. I had just gotten a promotion to a lead position. That meant I saw everybody’s contracts from our work area [Behavioral Health Administration]. They all funneled through me. Over the years, I had often thought that DHS is sloppy. But 2018 and 2019 are when I saw, oh gosh, this is beyond normal. If we don’t have fraud today, we’re going to have fraud soon.
CJ: Can you give an example?
FB: I could give a contract to my...
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