Minnesota DHS official served on nonprofit's board while approving public payments
A senior official at the
Former Assistant Commissioner
The episode appears to violate
The case is under examination by the Minnesota Legislative Auditor, which confirmed the existence of the inquiry on Monday but declined to give specifics. "Our office is in the late stages of completing a special review that looks at similar issues," said
State officials defended Moracco Monday, saying that there was no conflict because he was representing the state's interests with an organization that was trying to lower health care costs and improve quality.
"When somebody is serving in their capacity for the state, that is not a conflict of interest," said Commissioner
Furthermore, Moracco did not personally benefit financially and
However, in late 2016 Moracco told Johnson in an e-mail that he would separate his
He stopped approving membership payments after 2016 and last year asked Johnson to approve the annual dues because of his dual roles. "As a board member I want to avoid a conflict of interest," he wrote in
Moracco did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Before he started at
Moracco was replaced as assistant commissioner, where he oversaw the Medicaid program, earlier this year when then-DHS Commissioner
He remains at
Ethics policy
The contracts approved by Moracco helped fund a program that provided 85% of the
At the time, Moracco was one of only five outside directors on the
Under state policy, state employees must act "immediately" when they become aware of a conflict "to remove the conflict and, if necessary, separate the employee from the acquisition."
Johnson acknowledged that questions were raised within
"Someone had raised a concern about whether he had been signing this or not," Johnson said.
As a result, Moracco consulted a
"Obviously we could have done that previously but we didn't identify that as in issue," Johnson said Monday.
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