Fraud Team Saves $1.2M as Stearns County Cases Climb

(KNSI) — A fraud prevention program that brought investigative duties back under the umbrella of the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office is yielding results and a growing caseload.

Investigative Lieutenant Zach Sorensen and Janelle Beckerman with Stearns County Human Services presented their findings to the Stearns County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday morning. The program was brought back under the Sheriff’s Office in July 2023 after more than a decade of being contracted out to a third party.

Since then, about 90 percent of cases come directly from Human Services. When a caseworker spots a discrepancy during an interview or paperwork review, a referral goes to Sorensen’s team to investigate.
Between July 2023 and June 2025, the program recorded 789 referrals from Human Services, $1.2 million in savings, and $775,000 in identified overpayments. Only four cases were referred to the County Attorney’s Office for criminal prosecution.

KNSI News spoke with Sorensen immediately after the presentation and asked about the most important message for county taxpayers. “We’re doing everything in our power to be able to investigate and provide facts. Because we are fiscally responsible and we do care about the tax money that people are working hard and providing.”

Not every case ends in charges. Sorensen explained that the complexity of eligibility rules, including household size, income, meal preparation, and living arrangements, means honest mistakes are common, and investigators have to sort those from intentional fraud. “There are ones where it’s not intentional, there are those that are clearly intentional that we’ve moved for prosecution, and there’s a wide variety in the middle that, given the capacity to fully work them, we could move them more in a criminal direction.”

Because of the high number of referrals and limited staff, investigators have to triage how much time they put into each case, meaning the most egregious cases are the ones that move toward prosecution.

The two fraud investigators are currently managing between 65 and 80 pending cases, with the oldest referral dating back to October 2025. Referrals appear to be increasing in the program’s third fiscal year.

Residents with tips can submit them through the sheriff’s office online tip portal, the same place used to report any other crime.

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