OSA Weekly Update - 10/17/2025
1. Message from Auditor Blaha
2. Relief Associations: Fire State Aid Deadline
3. TIF: Deadline Reminders
4. Avoiding Pitfall: Confirm Decertification Dates of TIF Districts
1. Message from Auditor Blaha
When does the legislative season really get going – after New Year’s? When the legislature reconvenes February 17, 2026? I’d say it’s right about now. State agencies have until the end of October to get legislation and budget requests into the Revisor’s Office to be made into bills. Because of that, many of the bills we’ll see next year are being written now. So if you have an idea you’d like to see made into law, now is the time to get your ideas on paper and start talking to legislators and allies. That October deadline for state agencies won’t stop you from getting legislation going later. But using the time between now and the fall of the gavel will improve your chances of passage.
2. Relief Associations: Fire State Aid Deadline
Other Postemployment Benefits (OPEB) include all benefits, other than pensions, promised to retirees. Minnesota law permits local government entities to create trusts to set aside money to pay future OPEB obligations. Administrators of these trusts are to annually report and certify certain investment information to the Office of the State Auditor by Oct. 25. Contact us at OPEB@osa.state.mn.us with any questions or to obtain login information for accessing the form.
3. TIF: Deadline Reminders
TIF authorities required to decertify a district in 2025 under the Six-Year Rule due to tax increment collections through the end of the calendar year should be aware of deadlines to both make the decertification by resolution and to communicate the decertification to the county auditor. If the required decertification had been deferred by a qualifying pay-as-you-go (PAYG) note but is now required because the note reached termination in 2025, the decertification and notification of the county auditor is due by Dec. 31, 2025. Otherwise, the decertification (effective for the end of the calendar year 2025) and notification must be done no later than the final settlement date of Jan. 25, 2026. However, decertifications should be made and communicated to county auditors as early as possible to enable them to execute the decertification in a timely manner and prevent an extra year of calculated increment that would need to be returned. For more information, see our Statement of Position: TIF Five-Year Rule and Six-Year Rule. Our website also has videos on the Six-Year Rule.
4. Avoiding Pitfall: Confirm Decertification Dates of TIF Districts
After a municipality approves the establishment of a TIF district, the district is certified and its estimated decertification date is recorded by the county. The decertification date is adjusted if the year the district receives its first increment is different than originally estimated.
It is important that a development authority and its county confirm that there is agreement on a TIF district’s decertification date. If the authority receives tax increment after the decertification date, it must return the increment to the county for redistribution. If the county’s recorded decertification date is earlier than the date used by the development authority, the authority may not be able to cover its bonded debt obligations or its contractual obligations.
If tax increment is received in error, the county auditor has the authority to correct the error through the Correction of Errors provision in the TIF Act. For more information on correcting TIF errors, see our Statement of Position available here.
The full Avoiding Pitfall is available on the OSA website.
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