Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was warned of rampant day care fraud last year but ‘turned a blind eye’: GOP state lawmaker

MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz “turned a blind eye” to repeated warnings that taxpayer-funded day care providers in the state may be engaging in fraud, according to a Republican state lawmaker. 

State Rep. Kristin Robbins, chairwoman of the Minnesota Fraud Committee and a GOP candidate for governor, told The Post she informed the Walz administration about her suspicions after running a hearing on day care fraud in February 2024 — but it fell on deaf ears.  

“I gave the Department of Human Services a list of day care providers getting over $1 million in the previous year from the state who had numerous violations, and this day care was one of them on the list,” Robbins said outside the “Quality Learing Center” facility. 

“They can’t say they didn’t know. We had a hearing on it. We gave them a list, and nothing has happened,” she claimed. “I find it shocking that this is still happening when we flagged something over and over again.”

The day care with the misspelled sign received $4 million in state funds despite reportedly having no kids. 

Last week, independent journalist Nick Shirley released video footage that quickly went viral of himself paying a visit to Quality Learning Center, and other day cares in the North Star State receiving taxpayer funding, only to find seemingly empty facilities devoid of children. 

“In Minnesota, we’ve been ground zero for fraud, unfortunately,” Robbins said. “This is a pattern across multiple programs, and despite numerous red flags, we keep seeing it.”

The Republican accused Walz — her potential 2026 gubernatorial race opponent — of completely ignoring longstanding fraud concerns up until just in “the last couple of weeks.” 

“They’ve started saying they are stopping payments to different programs and pausing new providers, which is welcome but until this firestorm erupted, they’ve done nothing,” Robbins said.

The GOP lawmaker called on the governor to resign over the fraud scandals that have plagued Minnesota. 

“He has turned a blind eye for so long that he cannot deny there were so many whistleblower reports, so many media reports,” Robbins fumed. “For them to say we did not know is just not true.”

“He absolutely shouldn’t be re-elected,” she said of Walz. “If he resigned now, it would help, but Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan has been part of this all along, so I don’t know if getting him to step down and getting Flanagan in office actually solves the problem.

“What we need is a new governor who is going to clean house and have a no fraud, no excuses culture.”