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When you fill up your tank, how do you know you're getting what you pay for? You can thank the inspectors at the Department of Commerce Weights and Measures Division.

"So they’re going to look at the signage and labeling at the gas station to make sure what’s advertised at the boulevard is what's actually being sold at the pumps," said Julie Quinn, the Weights and Measures Division director.

Quinn has dedicated nearly 30 years to the division.

"They're going to test the tanks for water. They’re going to look at the product itself and make a determination on whether they need to sample it," said Quinn.

From roadside weigh stations to the scales at a grocery store, and local gas stations, the Weights and Measures Division is making sure consumers get their money's worth.

"For a typical grocery store, for every 1/100th of a pound that a scale is off, that's about $6600 per year that either the consumers are losing or the store is losing," said Quinn.

The Weights and Measures Division, now housed in the Department of Commerce, is the oldest consumer protection agency in the state, weighing and measuring for more than 130 years. The division also helps Minnesotans have confidence in the marketplace.

"There isn’t a single sector of the economy in Minnesota that isn’t touched by what our 30-person division does," said Quinn.

In agriculture, farmers can’t ship grain across state lines or into international trade unless it goes across a FGIS scale, which is a railroad or vehicle scale that the division certifies as accurate.

The Weights and Measures program is funded through a petroleum inspection fee. Terminals and refineries are charged a dollar for every thousand gallons of petroleum. The program gets 89 cents of that $1.

The program is saving taxpayers more than a million dollars each year, by returning fees from scale inspections, package checking, metrology, and petroleum lab services to the general fund. That money then gets invested in Minnesota's future.

Inspectors also make sure pumps aren't being used for fraud.

"The key thing that we're looking for in that is that there are no credit card skimmers," said Quinn. Skimmers or electronic devices that get placed inside the pump can steal credit card information.

It's just one more way Weights and Measures Division is saving Minnesota taxpayers money.

"We affect billions and billions of dollars. I like to think that we are essentially the cash register of Minnesota, that what we do is make sure that cash register of Minnesota is correct," said Quinn.

To learn more about the Weights and Measures Division or to file a complaint, visit: https://mn.gov/commerce/consumers/fil....