The facts
Since Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in 2020, the city has hired dozens of community groups to prevent crime and to work as alternatives to police. A city audit now says oversight of more than 100 of those contracts was so loose that it increased the risk of fraud while enabling favoritism in contracting. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported the findings on Sept. 27, 2026.
This is the Minneapolis City Auditor's Neighborhood Safety Contract Management Audit. It is a city report, not a state legislative audit. The auditor looked at how the Neighborhood Safety Department manages contracts with groups hired to fight gangs, meet victims in hospitals, and support people after a crime. Since 2023 the city has spent more than $36 million on five main programs in that work. Fox News, citing the report, says it reviews spending from 2020 through 2025. The auditor's conclusion is that the department does not provide sufficient oversight of its contracts or its contractors. The gaps increase the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse, and they limit the city's ability to know it received the services it paid for. Fox News says the audit did not identify a specific instance of fraud.
The audit exists because the city already got sued. About two years ago lawyer Dean Thomson sued, alleging Minneapolis failed to oversee millions paid to community groups. The settlement is the Coppola agreement, court file 27-CV-23-17353, signed in August 2024. The Star Tribune says the audit found the city is not living up to that deal and is exposed to "significant risks." Thomson told KSTP there was no accountability, and that the city was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars on invoices with no backup.
On the invoices, the finding is rated high. Neighborhood Safety's billing does not fully match city rules or the Coppola settlement. Some contractors turn in thin paperwork. The department often asks for the rest months later. The auditor says that raises the risk of paying for work the city cannot fully verify. Fox News, reading the audit, says the city sometimes kept paying when records were missing or concerns were still open. Once the money is out, the city has limited assurance the costs were real, and a harder time getting it back.
Site visits are not a system. The auditor says there is no reliable way to show a contractor was in the assigned area, on the assigned hours, doing the assigned job. Informal check-ins raise the risk that fraud, waste, and abuse never get spotted.
The Star Tribune says the city does not have adequate controls to keep political pressure and conflicts of interest out of contracting. The audit says the process should be "fair and free from undue influence and pressure," and that employees and officials should disclose a conflict, any pressure, and any communication with a contractor.
A separate case is not a finding of this audit. On May 8, 2026, Attorney General Keith Ellison sued the violence-prevention nonprofit We Push for Peace and two former leaders, Trahern Pollard and Jaclyn McGuigan. The civil suit alleges they misused more than $6.5 million in charitable assets. The attorney general says more than $6 million of that benefited Pollard, including luxury cars, Las Vegas trips, child support, a liquor store, and a car dealership, and alleges false statements to investigators. It is a lawsuit, not a conviction. The Star Tribune says the city paid that group nearly $2 million from 2021 to March 2025 for violence interruption and outreach. A city spokesperson said Minneapolis had not had a contract with the group for more than a year. That $6.5 million is not part of the audit's $36 million finding.
Older reporting, also not this audit: in April 2025 the Star Tribune described a vendor who claimed eight hours a day, seven days a week, for months, and reported that the City Attorney's Office had found evidence of vendors billing both the city and Hennepin County for the same work.
This year the violence interrupter program is budgeted at $5.5 million. Mayor Jacob Frey has proposed cutting it by $2.6 million next year. He called it a "noble program filled with committed and talented community leaders, but clear tracking has not demonstrated the level of results taxpayers deserve." At a September budget committee meeting, Council Vice President Jamal Osman said the program is working and that the city can't take it away. Council Member Jason Chavez said crime will go up if the council approves the cut, and called that a fact. In March, Council Member Pearll Warren said she would rather spend the money on police and firefighters. She called interrupters she has seen in her north Minneapolis ward "21 Jump Street cops" and said they look like "a parade of Skittles."
A city spokesperson told Fox News the department appreciates the auditor, that the auditor widened the review, and that the city has taken steps since the report to tighten process and oversight.
Our take
Minneapolis took a knee in 2020 and then built a payroll around the pose.
The auditor did not walk in and find a suitcase of cash. He found a department that pays the invoice and asks what it was for months later. He found site visits that happen when somebody feels like it. He found no working safeguard against political pressure on who gets the contract. That is not a clean bill. That is a fraud risk written in the city's own font.
They already settled a lawsuit over the bookkeeping. The Coppola settlement was supposed to mean receipts and a look back at the old bills. The audit came back and said the city is still not doing the settlement. Thomson's line covers it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. No backup.
One group the attorney general sued sits in a separate file, and it is still only alleged. Ellison says We Push for Peace's former bosses helped themselves to more than $6.5 million. Cars. Vegas. Child support. A liquor store. The city had already handed that shop nearly $2 million, then let the contract lapse. The audit's point is that the next shop can do the same thing, because nobody is checking the work while the check clears.
Frey now wants a $2.6 million cut and says the tracking never showed the results. Osman says it is working, so leave it alone. Chavez says cutting it will raise crime, and that this is a fact. Warren watched the crews in her ward and called them a parade of Skittles. One side has a spreadsheet. The other has a slogan. The Skittles got paid either way.
The knee was free. The $36 million was not. The receipts were the job, and Minneapolis is still down on one knee.
