Close allies of embattled Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) were in charge of the Minnesota state agencies that distributed millions of taxpayer dollars to the Somali-run daycares, reportedly at the center of a mounting potential fraud scandal engulfing the governor’s office.
Walz appointees are facing renewed scrutiny after an investigative video from content creator Nick Shirley found that these child care facilities received more than $110 million in subsidies, primarily through the state’s federally funded Child Care Assistance Program, despite having few to no children on-site.
State records show that many of the care centers, operated primarily by Somali immigrants, were fraught with safety violations. Yet, the Minnesota Department of Human Services never revoked its licenses to operate.
The revelations come as whistleblowers and fraud watchdogs focus on which officials in Walz’s administration they say are responsible for allegedly allowing the rampant abuse of the state’s social services.
THESE ARE THE WALZ APPOINTEES WHO FAILED TO STOP RAMPANT MINNESOTA FRAUD
In April 2024, for example, Walz appointed Tikki Brown to head the newly-created Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families, which took over oversight of CCAP disbursements from the state Department of Human Services.
“Tikki’s work exemplifies our mission of making Minnesota the best state for children,” Walz said at the time of Brown’s appointment.
As commissioner of the new department, Brown has called for the state to racially diversify its pool of foster parents, suggesting that transracial foster care assignments can further “traumatize” minority children who are placed with white caretakers.
“The more variety and diversity we can have means that we can have a better match for children in the system who are undergoing great trauma and don’t need extra layers added on to it,” Brown told The Imprint, a news outlet centered on child welfare.
According to Brown’s government bio, she is focused on “advancing equity and inclusion” in the state’s child care system.
In an interview with the chief equity and inclusion officer of Children’s Minnesota, a hospital in the Twin Cities, Brown suggested that children participating in DCYF programming are treated differently based on their race, when asked whether she has different programmatic objectives depending on participant ethnicity.
“In Minnesota, we have significant disparities in the race and ethnicity of program participants across an array of services,” Brown told the pediatric healthcare provider. “We need different solutions to address this, not a one-size-fits-all approach.”
She added, “We have several ongoing efforts we expect to have an impact in tackling disparities, and we are looking to deepen our impact with a whole family systems approach.”
Brown is currently a fellow of the Equity Leaders in Action Network, a nationwide group of government workers formed to address “racism” in public early childhood programs and the purported absence of policy leadership “intentionally committed to racial equity.”
Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Ballmer Group, both left-wing benefactors of explicitly race-conscious causes, ELAN “critically examine[s], with a racial equity lens, institutional and structural policies and practices in the distribution of state and federal resources — e.g., funding and services.”
Brown was a member of the state’s Cultural and Ethnic Communities Leadership Council, an advisory body tasked with “reviewing DHS policies for racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and tribal disparities.”
At DHS, she also served on the agency’s Strategic Anti-Racism Team Steering Committee and sponsored the Black Women Employee Resource Group.
Before DCYF’s inception, Brown oversaw the children and family services division under then-DHS Commissioner Jodi Harpstead, another Walz appointee and advocate of cultural sensitivity.
WALZ SAYS HE WOULD ‘WELCOME MORE’ SOMALIS AS FRAUD INVESTIGATION INTENSIFIES
The Washington Examiner previously reported that before she headed the DHS, Harpstead had led the Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, a nonprofit organization that receives public funding to resettle Somalians in the state.
Under the auspices of her organization’s nine-figure annual budget, Harpstead deposited Somalians in various jurisdictions across Minnesota and accordingly helped them find jobs as well as acquire housing.
In addition to its resettlement work, the Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, with Harpstead as CEO, provided educational resources aimed at helping Minnesotans better understand and embrace Somali immigrants. These inclusion efforts included the circulation of a welcome guide titled “My Neighbor is Muslim” to Lutheran churches, encouraging non-Muslim residents to attend meals at local mosques during Ramadan, and pushing for community members to assist Somali arrivals, such as volunteering to tutor them in U.S. citizenship classes.
“Listen, read, think, discuss — and don’t leap to fear and hatred,” Harpstead said back in 2016. “There’s so much information on social media and so many opinions, that for all of us to really think and read and learn and discuss is going to be important.”
While still commissioner, Harpstead and her husband, Stanley “Stan” Harpstead, appear to have jointly donated $1,000 twice to the Harris-Walz 2024 victory fund, according to the couple’s Federal Election Commission filings.
Stanley Harpstead, a longtime Democratic donor, contributed to Walz’s gubernatorial reelection campaign in 2019, disclosure data shows.
A spokesman for DHS’s fraud prevention and licensing office directed the Washington Examiner to contact DCYF regarding the daycare fraud claims, noting that administration of CCAP had switched department hands. However, a bulk of the subsidies paid to the suspected Somali fraudsters was awarded when DHS helmed the program.
DCYF was contacted for comment.