Preview:
A Minnesota Department of Education official testified Tuesday that the agency verified addresses of food sites before approving them to receive federal funding, but left further vetting to a nonprofit that allegedly led the theft of $250 million.
Through a lengthy exchange, Honer told Udoibok that MDE processes new food site applications by checking to ensure that the address is a location where a food site can operate, and then adding them to an internal system.
“So, you just approve them?” Udoibok said.
“I would disagree,” Honer said.
oof. That’s essentially no verification
Yeah it obvious that the way the system was set up was there was very little upfront verifications with it being off loaded to the non-profit and then pushed to the USDA for after the fact prosecution. So a strange system for sure with lots of trust on the non-profits.
But I can see the need for speed during a global pandemic but can see it was taken advantage of.
I normally don’t follow court cases that closely but this is kind of crazy. Worth a read even if you haven’t been following this closely.
