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MINNEAPOLIS, MN—In a shocking development that has left local officials deeply bewildered, a new audit reveals that handing out tens of millions of dollars to unvetted groups with zero receipts might carry a slight risk of fraud.
The city of Minneapolis, operating under the watchful eye of Governor 'Tampon' Tim Walz, spent the last five years quietly distributing over $36 million in post-2020 violence-prevention contracts. To the complete astonishment of city hall, auditors discovered that lo and behold, handing piles of cash to random organizations might require occasionally checking if those organizations exist.
According to the new Neighborhood Safety Contract Management Audit Report, the city suffered from a minor breakdown in basic accounting, regularly paying out invoices that contained almost no supporting documentation. City workers were apparently far too busy saving the world to conduct pesky site visits, ensuring the money flowed completely unimpeded by reality.
Center of the American Experiment policy fellow Bill Glahn expressed profound lack of surprise at the findings.
"Based on my past reporting on this and other city grant programs, any diligent audit of any city-administered grant programs would produce similar results," Glahn said.
Glahn previously pointed out that the city committed up to $7.5 million to its violence-interrupter program while forgetting to check if violent crime was actually decreasing. Furthermore, several grant recipients possessed financial records smaller than a lemonade stand, with one group's "interrupters" eventually caught on video violently beating a homeless man outside a grocery store.
"The city seems primarily interested in shoveling money out the door to ‘address’ urgent problems," Glahn added. "Little if any care is given to ensuring that the grant recipients are capable of or have a track record of doing the work, are actually doing the work contracted for, or whether that work is resulting in net benefit for city residents and taxpayers."
The state of Minnesota has spent recent years pioneering this revolutionary approach to government oversight, famously failing to notice that its Feeding Our Future program was reimbursing nonexistent operations serving thousands of imaginary meals out of empty apartments and city parks.
"If they would have just gone to the facilities, you know, you hear of the thousands of people being served out of an apartment twice a day, all they would have to do is show up and look at it," Minnesota Republican state Sen. Mark Koran noted.
Gee, what a unique idea.
"There was a legislative auditor report that showed that 30 property owners where these businesses claim to operate out of, contacted the Department of Education who manage it, who managed that program, and they told them one, the businesses don't exist in their facilities, so they don't exist, period, and one of them I think was a city park," Koran said.
Glahn added that while physical site visits are helpful, "even a cursory, front-end review of tax records and financial statements would have disqualified many of these vendors from the get-go."
"We have not slowed down, there is no sense in which the fraud has been stopped in Minnesota," Glahn said.
While auditors stopped short of declaring specific instances of fraud in this particular report, observers online proved far less eager to extend benefit of the doubt to a government that treats taxpayer funds like confetti.
"Call it what it is," retired Navy intelligence officer Phillip C. Parrish posted on X. "This isn’t a tracking glitch. It’s the same business model that looted child-nutrition money, Medicaid housing, autism therapy, and daycare: stand up a moral emergency, pour cash through politically connected nonprofits, skip site visits and receipts, then scream 'livelihoods' when anyone asks where the money went."
Undeterred by the audit, city officials insisted everything is going according to plan. If you believe that, you might also believe one day AI will kill a billion people as per Bill Gates.
"We appreciate the support of the auditor to make thoughtful, strategic recommendations to improve our department. In fact, the auditor expanded the scope of the report to be more thorough and holistic," a Minneapolis city spokesperson said.
"The Neighborhood Safety Department has a lot to be proud of. Our work is meaningful, and every day we’re working to make our City safer through innovative safety services, like violence prevention and human trafficking prevention, among others. We’ve taken several steps since the audit report to improve our processes and contract oversight. We are in the business of helping people and improving lives – and that means improving how we do it. It’s that simple."
At this time, Minnesota officials announced plans to launch a new $50 million grant program aimed at auditing where the previous $36 million went, awarded directly to an unverified non-profit operating out of a local Wendy's dumpster.
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"There was a legislative auditor report that showed that 30 property owners where these businesses claim to operate out of, contacted the Department of Education who manage it, who managed that program, and they told them one, the businesses don't exist in their facilities, so they don't exist, period, and one of them I think was a city park," Koran said.
Glahn added that while physical site visits are helpful, "even a cursory, front-end review of tax records and financial statements would have disqualified many of these vendors from the get-go."
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| George Floyd and the Thug Life |
"We have not slowed down, there is no sense in which the fraud has been stopped in Minnesota," Glahn said.
While auditors stopped short of declaring specific instances of fraud in this particular report, observers online proved far less eager to extend benefit of the doubt to a government that treats taxpayer funds like confetti.
"Call it what it is," retired Navy intelligence officer Phillip C. Parrish posted on X. "This isn’t a tracking glitch. It’s the same business model that looted child-nutrition money, Medicaid housing, autism therapy, and daycare: stand up a moral emergency, pour cash through politically connected nonprofits, skip site visits and receipts, then scream 'livelihoods' when anyone asks where the money went."
Undeterred by the audit, city officials insisted everything is going according to plan. If you believe that, you might also believe one day AI will kill a billion people as per Bill Gates.
"We appreciate the support of the auditor to make thoughtful, strategic recommendations to improve our department. In fact, the auditor expanded the scope of the report to be more thorough and holistic," a Minneapolis city spokesperson said.
"The Neighborhood Safety Department has a lot to be proud of. Our work is meaningful, and every day we’re working to make our City safer through innovative safety services, like violence prevention and human trafficking prevention, among others. We’ve taken several steps since the audit report to improve our processes and contract oversight. We are in the business of helping people and improving lives – and that means improving how we do it. It’s that simple."
At this time, Minnesota officials announced plans to launch a new $50 million grant program aimed at auditing where the previous $36 million went, awarded directly to an unverified non-profit operating out of a local Wendy's dumpster.
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