What to know about a recent legislative audit on the Minnesota governor's office
Buried in a torrent of election stories on Tuesday was the announcement by the legislative auditor that there were noncompliance issues found in its audit of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's office.
The Minnesota Legislative Auditor is a nonpartisan watchdog that audits state government agencies.
With fraud allegations rocking state programs, the legislature has given the agency an additional $1.24 million to conduct more investigations. The special review unit of the office investigates alleged major fraud, including the Feeding Our Future scandal.
Another division of the legislative auditor's office, the financial review division, conducts routine audits every four years of government offices.
In its most recent audit of the governor's office, there were 12 noncompliance findings, including receipts that were not correctly managed, employee timesheet completion and approval were not always accurate and there were some late and inaccurate payments to vendors.
But the auditor who supervised the governor's office report says no fraud was found.
"What that means is you have these pervasive issues in areas like receipts and expenditures, both nonpayroll and payroll, and inventory, is that you can create an opportunity for fraud," Lori Leysen, deputy legislative auditor, said. "It's not something that we found. It's just that that opportunity can exist."
The governor's office says 11 of the report's 12 findings have been resolved.
"Always grateful for the legislative auditor," Walz said earlier this week. "The report was on the governor's office, which involves many different things. I think the auditor gave us some good best practices of things that we need to go forward."
Later this week, the legislative auditor will release a statewide audit of overtime pay. The financial review division is also working on audits of the Department of Natural Resources, the Outdoor Heritage Fund, Minnesota IT Services and the Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division.
In 2024, this division audited "hero bonuses" for frontline COVID workers and found $200 million of payments to ineligible recipients. Tipping them off to the fraud: irregular email addresses and people who had died.
The legislative auditor's office refers all cases of fraud it finds to the proper law enforcement agency.
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