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ST. PAUL — Fixing fraud in government has been front and center at the Minnesota Capitol, and with an election on the horizon, the pressure to act is only growing.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree now is the time to fix it. But when it comes to how and who’s responsible, big disagreements remain.

How the state is going to tackle fraud has become the talk this session, with Democrats, Republicans and even the governor rolling out their own plans.

Senate Democrats say their package is built from what they’ve learned in hearings this session and focuses on preventing fraud before it happens.

“It became more apparent to us where there were areas that legislatively, we could make some fixes around fraud,” said Sen. Rob Kupec, DFL-Moorhead.

Anna Paige / The Forum

Kupec said the root issue has been a lack of oversight.

“We as the Legislature, we appropriate the funds, and the administration is going to oversee those funds, and there’s definitely been a failure of oversight,” he said.

But Republicans see it differently.

“Unfortunately, Minnesota Democrats have been unwilling to hold the (Gov. Tim) Walz administration accountable for losing billions of dollars to criminals,” said Sen. Jordan Rasmusson, R-Fergus Falls.

Rasmusson said the problem isn’t a lack of laws, but a failure to act on red flags.

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“We have seen the Walz administration and legislative Democrats turn a blind eye to this massive human services fraud,” he said.

As both sides lay out their case, the politics of the issue are hard to ignore.

“I think on some sides, there are some people who are running for a higher office who don’t really want maybe the fraud thing to be solved as fast … because it’s a good campaign issue,” Kupec said.

Still, there are areas of agreement.

“There is bipartisan support for establishing an Office of Inspector General, and we also see some agreement on various program integrity enhancements,” Rasmusson said.

With the session ending May 18, lawmakers are racing the clock and the campaign season.

“A lot of these bills don’t cross the finish line until the end of session. And Senate Republicans are going to continue to show up and propose our ideas on how we can protect taxpayers and stop this human services fraud crisis, and we’ll look for bipartisan partners to get that work done,” Rasmusson said.