| Public Release Date: February 14, 1997 | No. 97-09 |
The State Treasurer is a constitutional officer elected by the citizens of the state to a four-year term. Michael A. McGrath has served as State Treasurer since January 1987. The Office of the State Treasurer provides banking services for most state agencies. This function includes cash control, receipt processing, and warrant redemption. In addition, the office makes debt service payments on outstanding general obligation bonds and collects various fees and assessments transmitted from county units of government. The State Treasurer also serves as a member of the State Board of Investment, the Minnesota State Retirement System Board, and the Executive Council.
Our work in the Office of the State Treasurer is completed as part of our annual Statewide Audit. Our audit scope focused on those areas material to the state of Minnesota's financial statements, including state depository cash control and debt service expenditures. In addition, we expanded our audit scope beyond Statewide Audit objectives to review Office of the State Treasurer revenue collections and administrative expenditures for fiscal years 1995 and 1996.
We concluded that internal controls over the areas reviewed provide reasonable assurance that assets were adequately safeguarded, and that transactions were authorized and properly reported in the accounting records. We also concluded that the office complied with material legal provisions related to the areas reviewed. However, the Office of the State Treasurer needs to work with the Departments of Finance and Public Safety to improve the timeliness of investing deputy registrar receipts. In addition, the office did not have an adequate separation of duties over the receipt process and did not effectively limit access to the state's centralized accounting system.
