{"id":115555,"date":"2025-12-31T23:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T23:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/115555\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T23:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T23:41:08","slug":"hhs-to-freeze-future-child-care-funding-to-states-beyond-minnesota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/115555\/","title":{"rendered":"HHS to freeze future child care funding to states beyond Minnesota"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 The US Department of Health and Human Services is freezing all future child care funding<\/a> to states beyond Minnesota, with President Trump predicting his administration will find massive fraud in California. <\/p>\n

The review of government funding started in Minnesota but will be expanded nationwide until feds can determine that no taxpayer dollars are being spent fraudulently.<\/p>\n

\u201cHHS has a clear duty to verify the proper use of taxpayer funds,\u201d spokesman Andrew Nixon said in a statement. \u201cThe documentation process exists to rule out fraud and confirm that funds are supporting legitimate child care providers.<\/p>\n

The US Department of Health and Human Services is freezing all future child care funding to states other than Minnesota until it can be determined that no taxpayer dollars are being spent fraudulently. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cThese requirements help ensure the integrity of the program and protect both families and providers,\u201d he added, noting that until individual state-level allocations can be vetted, no further funding will be disbursed.<\/p>\n

Child care centers nationwide are funded by programs in state governments that receive matching allocations from HHS. The department has already allocated billions of dollars<\/a> for funding in all 50 states this year.<\/p>\n

HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O\u2019Neill said Tuesday afternoon that the process began with the pausing of \u201call\u00a0child care payments to the state of Minnesota<\/a>\u201d \u2014 the day after a viral video showed alleged fraud at day care centers in the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n

The Gopher State has raked in $185 million from HHS coffers so far this calendar year, according to Alex Adams, the assistant secretary of HHS\u2019 Administration for Children and Families.<\/p>\n

In total, Minnesota shelled out $18 billion in state welfare services since 2018 \u2014 roughly half of which is believed to have fallen into the hands of fraudsters, according to the US Attorney\u2019s office in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cHHS has a clear duty to verify the proper use of taxpayer funds,\u201d spokesman Andrew Nixon said in a statement. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Many were Somali-owned, with nearly 80,000 from the country residing in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, O\u2019Neill accused state officials of having \u201cfunneled millions of taxpayer dollars to\u00a0fraudulent daycares across Minnesota<\/a>\u00a0over the past decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

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YouTuber Nick Shirley got millions of views after posting a more than 40-minute video to X showing his visits to day care centers in Minneapolis that had allegedly received millions of taxpayer dollars \u2014 but didn\u2019t appear to be serving children or were closed.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, President Trump posted on his Truth Social: \u201cThere is more FRAUD in California than there is in Minnesota, if that is even possible.\u201d AP<\/p>\n

Now, the nonprofits previously reaping the benefits of the state\u2019s lax enforcement will have to provide receipts to the feds as well as the findings of an audit of organizations\u2019 \u201cattendance records,\u00a0licenses, complaints, investigations<\/a>, and inspections,\u201d O\u2019Neill added.<\/p>\n

HHS has also put out a hotline and an email address to help assist in the reporting of fraud at\u00a0childcare.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud,\u201d the HHS deputy secretary affirmed.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Trump posted on his Truth Social: \u201cThere is more FRAUD in California than there is in Minnesota, if that is even possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The US Department of Health and Human Services is freezing all future child care funding to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3409,3130,38117,4226,13,3586,14594],"class_list":["post-115555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-child","tag-fraud","tag-health-and-human-services","tag-minnesota","tag-politics","tag-us-news","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}