ST. PAUL, Minn. — The state Human Services Department ordered a two-year moratorium on funding to local rehab and protective services for children and disabled adults. The order follows a directive from Governor Tim Walz to audit 14 “high-risk services” for possible fraudulent Medicaid claims. Federal authorities have charged nine people with defrauding state housing and autism programs. These are mostly group homes, whose operators say Walz has over-reacted. The Walz moratorium puts people “in jeopardy of losing their support,” said Shannon Bock, director of a service provider in Moorhead in a Minnesota Star Tribune interview. Jon Nelson in Duluth said that his agency’s plan for a new respite home for children in Virginia has been put on ice. The facility would have a been “a small haven” to help kids with behavioral or mental health challenges ease back into the community after hospital stays. The Virginia respite home would have given beleaguered parents a chance to catch their breaths without sending their kids to foster care, he told the Star Tribune.
