MINNEAPOLIS, MN - A Minnesota day care at the center of growing scrutiny over widespread welfare fraud across the state was reportedly shut down last week, according to state officials, even as its owners insisted to reporters the facility was still fully operational.
At the center of the scandal is the Quality “Learing” Center, a supposed Minneapolis day care whose misspelled signage went viral amid allegations of large-scale fraud tied to Minnesota’s taxpayer-funded child care programs.
While the sign has since been fixed, the point is clear: no learning was really going on.
Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families Commissioner Tikki Brown told reporter Monday that the facility had closed and that her department found no evidence of fraud among the day cares highlighted in recent online investigations.
That claim, however, came on the same day the center’s owners staged what appeared to be a demonstration for the New York Post, allowing cameras to observe children being bused into the building and insisting the day care was open and operating as usual. At least 20 children were seen entering the facility Monday afternoon, despite the state’s assertion that it had shut down.
Brown later issued a clarification stating that the Quality “Learing” Center had initially notified regulators of its intent to close but ultimately decided to remain open, further muddying an already confusing timeline.
State officials’ explanations have done little to inspire confidence.
While Commissioner Brown insisted her department found no evidence of fraud at the facilities highlighted online, that assurance rings hollow given the scale of abuse already uncovered in Minnesota’s social services system.
The Quality “Learing” Center alone reportedly received as much as $4 million in taxpayer funds while racking up dozens of inspection violations, yet state regulators now appear unsure whether the facility was even open or closed on the same day reporters were watching children being bused inside.
That confusion is not happening in a vacuum. Minnesota has spent years grappling with a sprawling fraud problem tied to taxpayer-funded programs, much of it centered in the child care, food assistance, housing, and autism services sectors.
Dozens of individuals, the majority of them Somali immigrants, have already been arrested in connection with schemes that investigators say have siphoned off more than $1 billion so far. That figure includes hundreds of millions tied to bogus food distribution programs, fake autism services, and housing subsidies that never reached their intended recipients.
For critics, the sight of children suddenly appearing on cue at a day care long suspected of being a paper operation feels uncomfortably familiar.
Investigators have previously documented similar tactics in earlier cases, where children were briefly checked in and immediately removed so providers could bill the state for full days of care that never actually occurred.
The question many Minnesotans are now asking is not whether fraud happened, but how long it was allowed to continue and how many warning signs were ignored along the way.
The controversy has already drawn national attention, with the Trump administration moving to freeze child care payments to Minnesota amid mounting fraud allegations.
Federal officials have said the money spigot has been turned off while investigations continue, a rare but telling step that underscores just how little confidence remains in the state’s oversight of its own programs.
For Minnesota taxpayers, the issue is no longer limited to a misspelled sign or a single questionable day care. It is about a system that allowed billions of dollars to be misdirected while regulators either missed or ignored the warning signs.
Whether the Quality “Learing” Center was ever actually open for legitimate business, we’re all learning the full scope to which certain groups of immigrants are seemingly willing to come to our country specifically to defraud its taxpayers.
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