Tim Walz’s school lunch fiasco got scammed for $250 million right under his nose

Media love discussing Tim Walz's school lunch program but skip how his administration overlooked fraud

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. Walz is rightly under fire for his overstated military record, frightening views on free speech and dubious relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. Rather than addressing these issues, Democrats are embracing the infamous advice of "Mad Men" character Don Draper: "If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation." 

You may have noticed the media heaping praise on Walz’s policies as governor, including the universal school lunch legislation he signed in 2023. Ignoring that the program abuses taxpayer dollars by allowing wealthy families to take advantage of school lunch programs, the media roundly casts it in a positive light. Why? To change the conversation. 

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."  

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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.  

Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz reacts during the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

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. 

The official narrative boasts the drama of a soap opera and the tension of a Hitchcock film. It features corruption, greed and even a well-placed $120,000 bribe on a juror’s doorstep. 

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. There, hidden crumbs reveal how such a fraudulent scheme was even possible: Walz had structured the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) in such a way that proper oversight was near impossible. 

The report shows that MDE suffers the same affliction as all the overwrought government agencies I oversee: diffuse decision-making that obscures accountability. As chairwoman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, I am all too familiar with education bureaucracies like the MDE enabling the misuse of taxpayer dollars. 

Take, for instance, page 55 of the report, which states that "MDE inappropriately asked Feeding Our Future to investigate complaints about itself." Essentially, a complainant would approach the Minnesota of Department of Education with an issue involving FOF, and education officials would say, "Figure it out amongst yourselves." It’s like a court allowing a defendant to be the judge at his or her own trial, a patently absurd way to dodge responsibility. 

Or on page 48, the report finds that MDE welcomed loose oversight requirements for high-risk sponsors. While this ostensibly helped maximize the number of meals served, according to the report, it also "put the programs’ integrity at risk." A more cynical and honest assessment is that weakening the guardrails helped divert funds from hungry children. 

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Additionally, the report reveals that MDE’s deficient oversight was motivated by fear of being called racist — the ultimate heresy of liberal bureaucrats. On page 4, MDE officials claim that they were prevented from acting by "accusations by Feeding Our Future that MDE was discriminating against it because it served minority communities." 

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. 

The report shows that MDE suffers the same affliction as all the overwrought government agencies I oversee: diffuse decision-making that obscures accountability. As chairwoman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, I am all too familiar with education bureaucracies like the MDE enabling the misuse of taxpayer dollars. 

Walz has since accepted that the fraud occurred on his watch. What he has yet to claim responsibility for is harming thousands of Minnesotan children. 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. 

Finally, to the media and the campaign spinning the school lunch narrative, I say this: you must first address this scandal in good faith before moving forward. Imagine this level of fraud on a national scale: that is the risk America runs with Walz on the ticket.

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Rep. Virginia Foxx is a Republican representing North Carolina’s 5th District. She is the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.