And, if the state aims to up its game, District 3 Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, says updating antiquated technology should be part of the conversation.
Hauschild helped orchestrate a Thursday morning demonstration of the systems that St. Louis County staff must navigate when processing aid applications.
Minnesota is one of 10 jurisdictions nationwide where federal public assistance programs are supervised at the state level but administered at the county level.
"If we're relying on software from the 1980s and 1990s to administer these critical social services, then we're doing a disservice to ensuring we have the safeguards we need to make sure that these programs are administered adequately," Hauschild said.
"I don't think it has anything to do with the staff," he said. "Again, it's the systems that we put in front of them and the investments we make as a government, saying: 'Hey, good luck. Have fun. Do your best.' And then we get mad when things don't go right."
St. Louis County Administrator Kevin Gray praised Hauschild for shining a light on the issue and said, "I think there's a high awareness that the time has way passed to make this investment. But we still need to get it through."
The exact cost to replace or upgrade the state's case-management systems remains somewhat murky. But Hauschild said it could easily require an investment of more than $100 million over the next few years.
The situation cannot be fixed quickly, but Deputy St. Louis County Administrator and Director of Public Health and Human Services Linnea Mirsch thanked Hauschild for recognizing the need for improvements.
She said updated systems could boost efficiency and provide better service to those in need.
"When people are dealing with some of the hardest moments in their lives, it's tough to be that voice on the other end of the phone or that person in the window, when you're dealing with really horrible systems," Mirsch said.
Dusty Leticka, St. Louis County's deputy director of public health and human services, said that while caseloads are "skyrocketing," the county has struggled to maintain current staffing levels.
He noted that one of the main case-management systems Minnesota relies upon is Maxis, which dates back to 1989.
Hauschild said he was born that same year, and observed that technology has evolved significantly in his lifetime.
In St. Louis County, an average of 16,573 people per month receive help through Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, which provides more than $30 million in local aid annually.
Meanwhile, the county also processed Medicaid benefits for 42,786 residents in the past year — a number that represents more than 20% of the county's population, as Leticka noted.
A demonstration of the case-management software systems staff use illustrated the difficulties staff encounter. Leticka said the various pieces of software "don't talk to one another," meaning that many data entry tasks must be repeated, slowing the process and introducing more opportunities for error.
Nevertheless, St. Louis County boasts an error rate of less than 3% — well below the state average, which exceeds 10%.
New federal policies could financially penalize states where error rates top 6%, creating an additional incentive to consider new systems that could improve accuracy.
"St. Louis County has done a tremendous job with its error rates and the way it administers these programs. But at the end of the day, it's costing taxpayers," Hauschild said.
Leticka said new software could also reduce worker burnout and improve employee retention.
All told, St. Louis County predicts technological shortcomings account for about $1.16 million in annual additional costs, and consume the equivalent work time of about 11 full-time employees.
Statewide, those added annual costs are estimated to total about $27.2 million, requiring the efforts equivalent to 272 full-time employees.
St. Louis County Board Member Annie Harala said the proposed technology improvements are not intended to cut the local workforce size but could enable some existing staff to be redeployed in ways that better serve the public.
Leticka said better software systems could also help staff flag peculiarities and better root out fraud.
In 2025, St. Louis County saw 547 investigations that helped to head off about $1.7 million in claims, according to a just-released community impact report.
The cost of new IT systems undeniably will be steep, but Gray pointed out that the resulting savings also would be considerable.
He expressed optimism that lawmakers will consider the big picture and not become discouraged.
"It's like that question: How do you eat an elephant?" Gray said. "One bite at a time."
Hauschild said there is growing awareness of the need for change after years of lawmakers ignoring the shortcomings of its information technology systems.
"We need to actually take on fraud and make the investments necessary to stop it. And I think the politicians who play games with fraud, instead of coming up with solutions to tackle it, I think that's where you're going to see the divergence between policymakers at the Capitol," he said. "My hope is that conversations like this one on the ground with the people who administer government programs can help show us the direction we need to go in order to address fraud."
© 2026 the Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minn.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
