All Minnesota Daycares got caught lying…

“Still waiting for proof”

In this interview, a federal official describes a standoff with the State of Minnesota over frozen child-care and Medicaid funding. The core question: has a single daycare been able to prove it is a legitimate business entitled to the funding that was frozen?

According to the official, the answer so far is no. The federal side says it has asked the state to submit proof of legitimacy and is “still waiting” — and that the state is “generally refusing to answer questions.”

On Medicaid, the official says a request for a corrective action plan produced what he called “a comical five-page joke,” prompting a demand for a real plan and a hearing the state requested. On child care, the official describes repealing Biden-era HHS regulations he says made it harder for states to enforce attendance records, and demanding “hard evidence” from states.

The exchange reflects the broader accountability fight that grew out of the Feeding Our Future scandal — where invented rosters of “ghost kids” let sites collect federal reimbursements for meals and care that never happened.

For the full fraud case this stems from, see the Feeding Our Future investigation hub.