A Minneapolis city audit has identified significant weaknesses in the way the city has monitored contracts awarded to community organizations involved in neighborhood and violence-prevention efforts.

The review covers contracts dating from 2020 through 2025, including programs established or expanded following the death of George Floyd and the widespread protests that followed. More than 100 contracts were awarded to community groups during that period.

Auditors focused on the city’s Neighborhood Safety Department and found shortcomings in several basic areas of contract administration. The report concluded that the city was “not providing sufficient contract oversight or managing contracts effectively.”

Since 2023, the city has spent more than $36 million through five major violence-prevention programs. According to the audit, weaknesses in the city’s procedures created an increased possibility of improper payments and fraudulent activity.

Among the concerns identified were invoices submitted without adequate supporting documentation. Auditors also found instances in which payments continued despite incomplete records or unresolved questions involving contracts.

Another issue involved inspections of organizations receiving city funding. The audit found that the department did not have a uniform system for carrying out and documenting site visits designed to establish whether contracted services were actually being delivered.

The report recommended improvements to the way Minneapolis reviews invoices, maintains contract documentation, records communications with organizations and handles concerns that require additional scrutiny.

Bill Glahn, a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment who has previously investigated Minneapolis’ violence-prevention programs, said the findings were consistent with problems he has observed in other city grant programs.

“Based on my past reporting on this and other city grant programs, any diligent audit of any city-administered grant programs would produce similar results,” Glahn told Fox News Digital.

Glahn has previously questioned whether Minneapolis’ violence-interruption programs have demonstrated measurable results. His earlier reporting noted that the city had committed millions of dollars to the initiative while publicly available evidence showing an effect on violent crime was limited.

He also examined organizations that received funding and raised questions about whether some had sufficient financial resources or staffing to manage grants significantly larger than their existing operations.

One organization examined in his earlier reporting was We Push for Peace. That reporting discussed incidents involving people associated with the organization, including an incident in which a violence interrupter was recorded on video assaulting a homeless man.

“The city seems primarily interested in shoveling money out the door to ‘address’ urgent problems,” Glahn said. “Little if any care is given to ensuring that the grant recipients are capable of or have a track record of doing the work, are actually doing the work contracted for, or whether that work is resulting in net benefit for city residents and taxpayers.”

The Minneapolis findings come amid broader scrutiny of government oversight in Minnesota following major fraud investigations involving other publicly funded programs, including Feeding Our Future and certain Medicaid services.

Minnesota state Sen. Mark Koran, a Republican, previously argued that more extensive physical inspections could have exposed problems in some programs before large amounts of public money were distributed.

“If they would have just gone to the facilities, you know, you hear of the thousands of people being served out of an apartment twice a day, all they would have to do is show up and look at it,” Koran told Fox News Digital.

Koran also cited a legislative auditor’s findings involving properties where businesses receiving funds reportedly claimed to operate. He said some property owners told authorities that the businesses were not operating at those locations.

“There was a legislative auditor report that showed that 30 property owners where these businesses claim to operate out of, contacted the Department of Education who manage it, who managed that program, and they told them one, the businesses don’t exist in their facilities, so they don’t exist, period, and one of them I think was a city park,” Koran said.

Glahn said physical inspections can be useful but argued that government agencies can also conduct financial checks before approving contracts.

He described site visits as “generally helpful” while arguing that “even a cursory, front-end review of tax records and financial statements would have disqualified many of these vendors from the get go.”

Glahn has also warned that Minnesota’s broader fraud problems remain unresolved.

“We have not slowed down, there is no sense in which the fraud has been stopped in Minnesota,” Glahn told Fox News Digital last month.

Importantly, the Minneapolis audit did not identify a specific case of fraud. Its conclusion was instead that weaknesses in the city’s oversight systems created conditions in which improper payments or fraudulent activity could occur.

The findings have nevertheless generated criticism from some commentators who argue that stronger safeguards are necessary when public money is distributed through community-based programs.

Retired Navy intelligence officer Phillip C. Parrish criticized the city’s approach in a post on X, writing, “Call it what it is,” before comparing the situation to other Minnesota fraud controversies.

“This isn’t a tracking glitch. It’s the same business model that looted child-nutrition money, Medicaid housing, autism therapy, and daycare: stand up a moral emergency, pour cash through politically connected nonprofits, skip site visits and receipts, then scream ‘livelihoods’ when anyone asks where the money went.”

A Minneapolis spokesperson said the city welcomed the auditor’s recommendations and pointed to changes already being made to improve oversight.

“We appreciate the support of the auditor to make thoughtful, strategic recommendations to improve our department. In fact, the auditor expanded the scope of the report to be more thorough and holistic.”

The spokesperson also defended the Neighborhood Safety Department’s work and said additional steps had already been taken to strengthen contracting procedures.

“The Neighborhood Safety Department has a lot to be proud of. Our work is meaningful, and every day we’re working to make our City safer through innovative safety services, like violence prevention and human trafficking prevention, among others. We’ve taken several steps since the audit report to improve our processes and contract oversight. We are in the business of helping people and improving lives – and that means improving how we do it. It’s that simple.”