OSA Weekly Update - 5/2/2025

1. Message from Auditor Blaha

2. Released: 2024 Legal Compliance Audit Guides Posted

3. Available: 2024 TIF Annual Reporting Forms

4. Revised: Fire Relief Association Statements of Position

5. Avoiding Pitfall: Credit Cards - Detailed Receipts Required

6. Job Openings

1. Message from Auditor Blaha

2. Released: 2024 Legal Compliance Audit Guides Posted

The 2024 Legal Compliance Audit Guides are now available on the OSA website. A Summary of Changes to the Guides has also been posted highlighting changes to the different guide sections. These changes include, for Cities and Counties Sections two new questions on the handling of Enhanced 911 funds. In the Relief Association Section there are definitional changes as well as the addition of supplemental state aid and supplemental benefit reimbursement to the amounts that must be credited to the relief association’s special fund. There were also changes to the Charter School Section reflecting the requirement of a procurement policy, new criteria for contracts that must be included in the audit, as well as definition changes for CMOs and EMOs. The new Guides as well as a more complete Summary of Changes can be found on the OSA website.

3. Available: 2024 TIF Annual Reporting Forms

TIF Annual Reporting Forms, required annually to report the tax increment financing activities of each TIF district, are now available in the State Auditor Form Entry System (SAFES). Forms must be downloaded, completed off-line, and submitted via SAFES by August 1, 2025.

Instructions and SAFES information were e-mailed on Thursday, May 1, 2025. If you did not receive an email and have TIF districts to report, contact our office at TIF@osa.state.mn.us.

4. Revised: Fire Relief Association Statements of Position

The OSA’s Statements of Position pertaining to fire relief association have all been reviewed and updated. The Statements of Position are educational resources for relief association trustees and cover topics including management of records, investment authority, considerations when making benefit level changes, and the process of paying service pensions.

The Statements of Position related to fire relief associations can be found under the “Pensions” heading on the OSA website.

5. Avoiding Pitfall: Credit Cards - Detailed Receipts Required

Counties, cities, towns, school districts, watershed districts, and soil and water conservation districts have the authority to use credit cards for purchases. Monthly statements received from credit card companies generally do not provide sufficient detail to determine whether a purchase was made for a public purpose and not for a public employee’s or public official’s personal use. As a result, public employees/public officials should be required to turn in the original, detailed receipt for every purchase made with the public entity’s credit card. For more information on this topic, see our Statement of Position on Credit Card Use and Policies here.

To download the State of Minnesota’s Purchasing Card Use Policy 1b from the Department of Administration’s website (pdf, 261 kb), click here.