A new legislative audit of Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s office โ conducted while she was the state’s second-ranking executive and a U.S. Senate candidate โ details a pattern of purchasing-card evasion, unrecovered overpayments to departing staff, and missing documentation on nearly every vendor payment examined, according to a Breitbart News report on the findings.
The 2025 audit, released by the Office of the Legislative Auditor, covers July 1, 2022, through December 31, 2024, and lays out 12 separate findings. Deputy Legislative Auditor Lori Leysen presented the findings, which describe persistent noncompliance with statutory spending limits and basic recordkeeping requirements.
A $5,000 Limit, Sidestepped
Among the most specific findings: staff in Flanagan’s office circumvented a $5,000 per-transaction limit on state purchasing cards by breaking large purchases into multiple back-to-back payments, according to Finding 12. Those split transactions included $7,893 for flowers and $7,343 for furniture.
The audit also noted that the cardholders involved had not signed updated use agreements since October 2015, and that internal controls failed to catch the violations.
‘Not in the Public Interest’
Finding 3 describes the office routinely overpaying separated employees and making no meaningful effort to recover the money. When auditors asked in April 2025 why leadership hadn’t tried to claw back thousands in improperly disbursed taxpayer dollars, the office responded that doing so was “not in the public interest.”
The response โ a dismissive posture toward recovering public funds, the audit’s authors suggest โ underscores a broader pattern the report documents across multiple findings.
Double-Paid Invoices and Error-Filled Reimbursements
Documentation from the Minnesota Department of Transportation shows Flanagan’s office overpaid invoices for state airplane usage after making mistakes on travel dates. The office paid both the original, incorrect invoices and the corrected ones, according to the audit.
Reimbursements fared no better. Of 40 tested employee reimbursements, 14 contained errors โ miscalculated mileage, improper meal claims, and basic arithmetic mistakes.
The vendor-payment picture was starker still: 40 of 41 vendor payments tested lacked completed documentation. Auditors said required price quotes to demonstrate competitive bidding were frequently missing, as were packing slips or delivery confirmations proving the state actually received what it paid for.
Unresolved Problems From 2022
The 2025 findings did not emerge in isolation. An earlier 2022 audit produced six major findings, five of which remained relevant, and Flanagan’s office failed to fully resolve four of them, according to state lawmakers and the auditor’s office. The pattern, the report suggests, is one of persistent neglect rather than isolated lapses.
Minnesota Senate Republican Leader Mark Johnson seized on the audit in a statement, saying: “Overpaying employees, losing state property, and stiffing vendors for monthsโit’s no wonder massive fraud is exploding across state government.”
Political Stakes in a Senate Race
Flanagan is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, running against Republican Michele Tafoya to replace Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November. The audit lands in the middle of that campaign, giving Republicans a fresh line of attack over fiscal stewardship.
Breitbart’s coverage also ties the audit to broader fraud concerns in Minnesota state government under Flanagan and Gov. Tim Walz, the failed 2024 vice presidential candidate, referencing at least $9 billion in fraud the outlet says the two oversaw.
The auditor’s findings focus on internal controls rather than alleging criminal conduct by Flanagan personally, but the report’s specifics โ the flower and furniture purchases split to evade limits, the unsigned card agreements dating to 2015, the paid-twice invoices, the near-total absence of documentation on vendor payments โ provide a detailed record that Flanagan’s political opponents are already using to argue her office was run with disregard for basic fiscal accountability.
For voters in the Senate race, the audit offers a concrete portrait of how Flanagan’s office handled taxpayer money during a period when she was also serving as a top surrogate for Walz’s national campaign. Whether it moves the race remains to be seen, but the document itself is now part of the public record, and Republicans have signaled they intend to keep it there.
Source: www.breitbart.com โ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/10/05/audit-reveals-widespread-financial-chaos-in-minnesota-democrat-peggy-flanagans-office/