House fraud committee touts early wins, pushes statewide inspector general and whistleblower protections

Representative Kristen Robbins, chair of the Minnesota House Fraud and State Agency Oversight Committee, opened a Monday morning meeting by summarizing the panel’s first-session work and urging lawmakers to keep the committee as a standing institutional oversight body.

“We had our last committee meeting of the session, so we just kinda wanted to get everyone together and talk about the success the committee had this year,” Robbins said, adding that fraud “is not a partisan issue. It’s a separation of powers issue.”

Robbins said the committee pursued three main goals this session: expose fraud and raise public awareness, identify gaps in statutes and agency tools, and create a public intake for allegations. The committee launched mnfraud.com as a public portal for whistleblowers and, Robbins said, received 530 submissions in the portal’s first week.

The committee has drafted multiple bills from testimony it received at hearings, Robbins said. Those include requests for a state “kickback” statute and legislation to require grants-management training offered by the Office of Grants Management. Robbins said two committee bills were filed…