Minnesota Legal Compliance Audit Guide for Local Government - Section 2

LEGAL COMPLIANCE MANUALCONFLICTS OF INTERESTIntroductionRule: A public officer authorized to take part in the making of a sale, lease, or contractshall not voluntarily have a personal financial interest in the transaction or personallybenefit financially from it. Minn. Stat. § 471.87. The following persons arespecifically forbidden from having any interest in any contract made by their respectivegoverning bodies:1. elected officers;2. town supervisors and town board members;3. county officials, county deputies, county clerks, and employees of suchofficials; or4. school board members.Exceptions: For practical reasons, the legislature has created certain limit ed exceptionst o the general prohibition. Exceptions apply to port authorities, seaway portauthorities, economic development authorities, towns, school districts, hospitaldistricts, counties and cities. Minn. Stat. § 471.88. Part I of this questionnaire willassist you in making a det erminat ion as t o w het her an otherw ise f orbidden transactionfits within any of the statutory exceptions. Care should be taken to determinewhether any exception considered applies to the entity and contract being audited. For the purposes of this checklist, "interested officer" shall mean a public officer oremployee, as list ed above, w ho directly or through his or her spouse (see " Discussion"below ) has a prohibited position or interest in either the entity making or the subjectmatter of the sale, ...