Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg sent a second letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on May 13 after the state did not fully respond to the committee’s initial oversight request from January regarding possible misuse of federal funds under the Child Care Development Block Grant Act program.
The follow-up letter outlines major shortcomings in Minnesota’s document production, noting that thousands of pages were duplicates. The committee also made its requests more specific due to what it called incomplete submissions by the state. In his letter, Walberg said, “Failure to fully respond to the Committee’s requests is both unacceptable and impeding the Committee’s oversight and legislative efforts.”
The correspondence further states, “In addition to being outside the scope of the Committee’s requests, and thus nonresponsive, the same press release was provided to the Committee at least 66 times, resulting in over 6,000 pages of duplicates. … Despite the Committee’s request, Minnesota produced over 34,750 pages of information otherwise publicly available. This constitutes over 90 percent of the documents.”
Walberg requested all emails from 2019–2026 discussing specific child care centers by Governor Walz, Lieutenant Governor Flanagan, and two senior staff members; unredacted versions of previously submitted documents; and records identifying child care providers who received more than $1 million in federal funds during that period.
The investigation began earlier this year into alleged improper payments and misuse of federal child care funds authorized under CCDBG. The findings are expected to help shape future legislation aimed at improving oversight and accountability for federally funded child care programs.
The House Education and Workforce Committee manages federal programs concerning education, labor, health and workforce development according to its official website. The committee also influences policy on issues such as student loans and worker protections while serving in a legislative capacity with jurisdiction over education and labor matters according to its official website.
