Feb 23, 2026
Governor Tim Walz today announced the appointment of Shireen Gandhi to serve as commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
Gandhi has served as the temporary human services commissioner since February 2025. During that time, she led work to root out Medicaid fraud and strengthen program integrity.
https://mn.gov/governor/newsroom/press-releases/?id=1055-726245
Commentary:
Conspiracy is comforting because it means someone was in control. The post describes something worse: a system where $9 billion vanishes and nobody even had to try.
I am the Commissioner of Minnesota's Department of Human Services.
I oversee 7,200 employees. I manage an annual budget of $19.4 billion. I administer programs that serve 1.2 million Minnesotans. I have been in public service for twenty-three years. I have a framed photograph of Paul Wellstone in my office and a laminated mission statement that reads "Helping People Live Better Lives" on a wall that faces nobody because the desk was rearranged during the last remodel.
Nine billion dollars was stolen from my programs.
I want to be precise. Not "lost." Not "unaccounted for." Stolen. Nine billion dollars in fraudulent welfare claims processed through systems I oversee, approved by employees I manage, funded by taxpayers I serve. The money was submitted by entities that did not exist, for services that were never rendered, to recipients who were sometimes fictional and sometimes dead.
Nine billion dollars.
I am told this is the largest welfare fraud in American history. I was not told this by my own department. I was told this by a reporter. My department was still categorizing it as a "billing irregularity" at the time.
The fraud ran for years. The claims were processed through our standard intake system — the one we call MAXIS, which was built in 1989 and has not been meaningfully updated since the Clinton administration. MAXIS processes claims in batches. It does not flag impossible claims. It does not cross-reference death records. It does not ask whether a childcare facility that invoices $47,000 per child per month for 400 children exists on a physical street. MAXIS processes. That is what MAXIS does.
A reasonable person might ask why MAXIS was not updated.
In 2017 we requested $14 million to modernize MAXIS. The legislature approved $2.3 million. We used the $2.3 million to produce a report recommending that MAXIS be modernized. The report is 340 pages. It was delivered to the legislature in a three-ring binder. The binder is in a storage room in the Elmer L. Andersen Building. I have not visited the storage room.
So MAXIS remained. And the claims came in. And we processed them.
Some context on the volume. In one fiscal year, my department processed 4.1 million individual claims. Our fraud detection unit had eleven employees. Eleven people reviewing 4.1 million claims. That is 372,727 claims per employee per year. That is 1,440 claims per employee per working day. That is three claims per minute, eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year, assuming no lunch break, no bathroom break, no moment where a human being looks at a number and thinks "that seems wrong."
We did not hire more people. Hiring requires authorization. Authorization requires a request. The request requires a form. The form is called an SF-52. The SF-52 requires a supervisor's signature, a budget justification, and an equity impact assessment. The equity impact assessment requires a thirty-day public comment period. The public comment period requires a notice in the State Register. By the time the SF-52 is approved, the fiscal year has ended and the position reverts to unallocated.
We did not hire more people because the system for hiring more people is the same system that did not catch $9 billion in fraud. The system is consistent.
A representative — Anderson, from the 10th district — asked me a question during the hearing. He asked it slowly, which I appreciated, because I wanted time to prepare my face.
"Commissioner," he said, "how many employees have been terminated as a result of this fraud?"
I said: "Congressman, we have undertaken a comprehensive internal review—"
"How many," he said.
"The review is ongoing and we have identified several procedural—"
"A number, Commissioner."
Zero.
The number is zero.
Zero employees terminated. Zero employees suspended. Zero employees placed on administrative leave. Zero employees reassigned. Zero employees given a written warning. Zero employees given a verbal warning. Zero employees called into a room and told that nine billion dollars had been stolen on their watch.
The fraud unit's eleven employees still report to the same building. They still use MAXIS. They still process claims at three per minute. They received a morale-boosting email from the deputy commissioner in October that read "Your dedication does not go unnoticed." The email was sent to the entire department. It was not specific to the fraud unit. The subject line was "Fall Wellness Reminder."
The representative then asked whether anyone had been promoted during the period of the fraud.
I asked for a recess.
The answer — which I provided after the recess, after consulting with counsel, after removing my glasses and cleaning them with a cloth I keep in my breast pocket specifically for moments when I need four seconds to not be speaking — is yes. Several employees in the oversight division were promoted during the period of the fraud. Two received commendations. One was named Employee of the Quarter in Q3 2023. The award included a $50 gift card to Panera Bread and a certificate that said "Excellence in Public Service."
The certificate is signed by me. I sign all the certificates. I have a stamp.
Let me explain how the fraud was eventually discovered. It was not discovered by my department. It was not discovered by our internal audit team — which, I should note, also reports to me and has never flagged a systemic issue in eight years of reporting to me. The fraud was discovered by an FBI field office in Minneapolis that was investigating an unrelated money laundering case and noticed that a network of Somali-American nonprofit organizations was receiving state payments for childcare services at addresses that were, in some cases, parking lots.
The FBI told us. We thanked them. We did not issue a press release. We issued an internal directive titled "Claims Processing Protocol Enhancement — Action Items for Q1 Review." The directive was eleven pages. Page seven recommended "additional scrutiny for high-volume providers." Page seven was the only page with a specific recommendation. The other ten pages were definitions, acronyms, and a flowchart that terminated in a box labeled "Refer to Supervisor."
The supervisor was one of the people who had been promoted.
I should address the question of accountability. The word came up fourteen times during the hearing. Fourteen times. I counted because counting gave me something to do with my hands.
Here is what I believe about accountability: accountability is a process. It is not an event. It is not a firing. It is not a perp walk. It is a deliberate, methodical review of systems, structures, and outcomes that, over time, produces insights that inform future decision-making. This process takes time. It cannot be rushed. Rushing accountability is how you get wrongful terminations. We are not in the business of wrongful terminations.
We are in the business of processing claims. Nine billion of which were fraudulent. But the other $10.4 billion were perfectly legitimate. I consider this a 54% success rate. That is not a phrase I used during the hearing.
The federal government has since opened its own investigation. The inspector general sent a team of fourteen people. Fourteen investigators for a $9 billion fraud. My department has 7,200 employees and caught zero. They have fourteen people and they seem optimistic. I admire their confidence. I signed their building access forms personally.
We have made changes. I want to be clear about that. We have made changes.
We renamed the fraud detection unit. It is now called the Program Integrity Division. We moved them to a different floor. The new floor has natural light, which I am told improves morale. We gave them new email addresses that end in .mn.gov instead of .mn.gov. We ordered new business cards. The business cards say "Program Integrity" in Garamond 10-point.
We also updated MAXIS. The update added a field. The field is a checkbox. The checkbox reads: "I certify that this claim is accurate and complete." It is pre-checked. The claimant must uncheck it to indicate fraud. No claimant has unchecked it. I consider this a 100% compliance rate.
The governor held a press conference. He stood behind a podium that said "Accountability and Reform." He announced that Minnesota would lead the nation in welfare fraud prevention. He announced a $6 million task force. The task force will produce a report. The report will recommend modernizing MAXIS. The recommendation will join the previous recommendation, from 2017, in the three-ring binder in the Elmer L. Andersen Building.
I still have my job. My deputy still has her job. The eleven fraud investigators still have their jobs. The promoted employees still have their promotions. The Employee of the Quarter still has the certificate. The Panera gift card was redeemed in full.
Nine billion dollars.
Zero consequences.
The mission statement on my wall still reads "Helping People Live Better Lives." It faces the window now. After the remodel, nobody moved it back. It has been facing the window for three years. The people who walk past my office cannot read it. I did not notice until the reporter pointed it out. She was doing a profile. She asked if it was symbolic.
I told her it was a facilities issue.
I am the Commissioner. I process claims. I sign certificates. I attend hearings. I clean my glasses when I need four seconds. I manage 7,200 people, none of whom have been fired, all of whom will report to work tomorrow, in the same building, using the same system, processing the same claims, at three per minute, with a checkbox that nobody unchecks.
The system is working. I am the proof. I have not been disturbed.
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