Should Idaho freak out over child-care fraud claims in Minnesota? | Opinion

Idaho Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, and Rep. Josh Tanner, R-Eagle, are within their rights to sound the alarm about federal child care subsidies, in light of a federal crackdown on alleged fraud in Minnesota.

But their call to try to pause the disbursement of $14 million of already approved funding in Idaho is alarmist and premature, and it would unjustifiably harm law-abiding child care providers and the families who benefit from these funds.

The Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced that the federal government had “frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota” after a viral video produced by Nick Shirley, a conservative content creator, according to The New York Times.

In the video, Shirley claimed to have exposed widespread fraud in day care centers run by people of Somali origin.

We should in no way accept whole cloth Shirley’s claims. In fact, the state of Minnesota on Friday said child-care centers were operating as expected when visited by investigators.

The tactics and conclusions of Shirley’s videos have been called into question, and for good reason. For example, Shirley offers as proof of fraud the fact that he was denied entry into centers, ignoring the fact that day-care centers, in the name of protecting the children under their care, of course would deny entry to some random stranger showing up at their doorstep.

But fraud in federal programs in Minnesota is by no means a stretch.

Investigations have been going on for more than a decade into federal subsidy programs in Minnesota, and indeed dozens of instances of fraud have been uncovered.

Since 2022, federal prosecutors have charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundred of millions of dollars from federal subsidy programs, according to The New York Times. And the vast majority of defendants are of Somali origin, according to The Times.

Of course, this isn’t Minnesota. We should not simply assume that the same thing is happening in Idaho.

Idaho legislators last year approved Senate Bill 1206, an appropriation to spend $14 million in existing, previously unspent federal money for the Idaho Child Care Program to expand the availability of home-based child care, community child care and after-school child care programs, particularly for underserved populations, according to the bill. The immediate recipients are child care providers that contract with or are approved by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

We do not necessarily disagree with some of the requests from Lenney and Tanner:

• Develop a comprehensive fraud-prevention and enforcement plan addressing enrollment verification, financial transparency, inspection protocols and coordination with the attorney general.
• Review prior child care grant and subsidy disbursements, as appropriate, to identify potential fraud, misuse or noncompliance and assess recovery options.
• Provide a briefing to the Legislature outlining safeguards, implementation timelines, findings and any recommended statutory or regulatory changes.

Trying to do that with every bit of taxpayer-funded programs is a good idea.

But we take great issue with their request to “temporarily suspend all solicitations, contract issuances, and disbursements authorized under S.B. 1206 until enhanced fraud-prevention measures are implemented.”

Without an iota of proof or evidence of wrongdoing in Idaho, suspending payments would be foolish.

An estimated 78,000 children in Idaho have all available parents in the workforce. The Child Care and Development Block Grant reaches only 15% of eligible families in Idaho, according to the First Five Years Fund, a national nonprofit advocating for early education and child care solutions.

The typical annual cost of child care for an infant in Idaho is around $10,000. On average, child care providers in Idaho earn just $28,510 a year, making it already a challenge to recruit and retain this workforce, leading to supply issues.

Idaho’s economy loses $525 million annually due to child care challenges, according to First Five Years.

No, cutting off funding would be not just foolish; it would be disastrous.

We urge prudence and caution — on both sides.

Let’s not jump to the conclusion that there’s widespread fraud and halt all payments. We have seen firsthand the ham-handed chainsaw method of cutting at the federal level and how it didn’t really save money or uncover the massive fraud promised.

If anything, we should learn from that experience that it’s better to use a scalpel.

Yes, it’s fine to investigate and find out whether there is any fraud in Idaho’s system. Shouldn’t that always be done? But in the meantime, don’t disrupt the lives and livelihoods of honest day-care centers and the families served by them.

Statesman editorials are the opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, assistant editor Jim Keyser and community members John Hess, Debbie McCormick and Julie Yamamoto.