Human Services reports fraud-prevention wins, SNAP E&T increase and appointments

Phil Glasser, director of Blue Earth County Human Services, presented action items and a longer informational briefing on April 21 covering SNAP Employment & Training funds, task force appointments, fraud prevention and billing recoveries.

For action items, Glasser described an amendment to SNAP E&T funding totaling $55,256 for the Oct. 2025–Sept. 2026 term (a 29% increase from the prior year). He also presented four appointments to the Social Service Task Force (two from District 5, one from District 4 and one from District 3). Commissioners moved and approved both action items by voice vote.

In the informational portion, Glasser said Human Services has measures to verify eligibility and track suspected fraud at the local level and identified program outcomes: staff prevented about $400,000 in future incorrect payments and identified approximately $92,000 in overpayments that were corrected. On child support, Glasser said the county dispersed over $7.3 million to families (about 2,500 children served in nearly 1,500 cases) and completed roughly 60 order modifications in the past year.

Glasser also discussed billing and recoveries: the county recovered roughly $9.2 million last year across revenue-bearing program areas and received about $4.18 million from targeted case management. He noted a current large outstanding item with UCare that he estimated at "over half $1,000,000" (described in transcript) and said that unresolved claims with payers can materially affect county cash flow.

Commissioners asked about safeguards and technology to reduce manual work; Glasser said staff perform bank- and employer-verification and that technology upgrades are complex and expected to take multiple years; work sessions on Medicaid and system changes were planned.