Staff Reports
A brash independent investigation led by journalist Nick Shirley pulled back the curtain on what appears to be a stunning theft of taxpayer dollars: licensed child-care centers in Minnesota that, on the face of state records, received millions in subsidies while looking empty to the public. Shirley’s on-the-ground videos show closed doors, blacked-out windows and posted enrollment figures that don’t match what a taxpayer should expect to find on a busy weekday.
One particularly glaring example is a facility identified as the Quality Learing Center, listed for nearly 99 children and shown in state documents as having received roughly $1.9 million in fiscal-year payments and as much as $4 million overall in Shirley’s ledger. Reporters who followed the footage found licensing records and dozens of prior violations on file, yet the building often appears vacant when independent checks are made. This is not an embarrassing clerical error — it smells like organized trafficking of public funds.
This is not an isolated anomaly; publicly available state payment data and on-camera visits point to a much broader problem inside Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program and related social-service disbursements. Federal and state prosecutors have opened wide-ranging probes into schemes like the Feeding Our Future scandal and other alleged frauds that investigators say could number in the hundreds of millions or more. The scale being discussed by federal prosecutors should terrify every taxpayer who pays their bills on time.
Conservative readers should be furious but not surprised: bloated welfare systems and lax oversight create irresistible targets for fraud when bureaucrats prioritize political optics over audits and enforcement. Multiple outlets have documented licensing violations, missing records for dozens of listed children, and facilities that appear on paper but not in reality — yet the checks kept flowing. If the people running these programs were serious about protecting vulnerable children, they would have closed obvious gaps years ago.
Republican lawmakers have already begun to call for answers, pressing Governor Tim Walz’s administration as federal authorities continue their investigations and indictments move forward in related schemes. This is the predictable fallout when government gets too big and too distant from the people paying the bills: accountability evaporates and hypocrisy flourishes. Minnesotans deserve a full accounting, prosecutions where warranted, and immediate reforms to claw back stolen funds and stop the bleeding.
Here’s the clear conservative prescription: slash waste, tighten audits, require real on-site verifications before another dime is handed out, and prosecute fraudsters to the fullest extent of the law. Let every dollar be tracked and every license validated; let state and federal investigators follow the paper trail and not be deterred by political sensitivity or municipal inertia. If Washington and St. Paul won’t protect taxpayers, then voters must demand leaders who will — and hold them accountable at the ballot box and in criminal court.
