Action regarding spending by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission in 2007 and details of revenues and expenditures for the 2008/2009 fiscal year stalled as commissioners tried to sort out financial reporting details.
Confusion dominated the Aug. 23 meeting as members, frustrated with the fallout caused by news stories regarding the agency’s large financial reporting errors in its 2006 annual report, discussed current and future budgets.
In late July, the Arizona Capitol Times reported the agency failed to report more than $2 million in spending. The commission, its staff and supporters attributed the mistake to simple human error, and said the report was misleading and opened the commission to unwarranted attacks by opponents of publicly financed elections.
The mistake was “embarrassing and disappointing,” but there was never a threat to the public, said CCEC Executive Director Todd Lang, noting that accurate financial figures have always been provided to governing commission members, the public and the Department of Administration.
“Folks were thinking we were screwing up our business,” said Lang, to commission members on the results of media reports of the reporting error, adding that the “idea of an improper motive” behind the reporting inaccuracies is “appalling.”
Carl Kunasek, a CCEC commissioner, said he is also troubled by the financial error and subsequent media reports, and is concerned with what the commission can do to redeem its image.
“The perception I felt is that ‘you’re supposed to be running a clean program,’” he said. “And the perception is ‘we had a $1.8 million accounting error (for reported voter education expenditures).’”
Commissioner Marcia Busching said she was bothered by news presented by Lang that the agency is currently set to exceed its 2007 allotment of $890,000 for administration and enforcement expenses.
“We were very generous when we adopted the 2007 budget,” said Busching, who asked commission staff for more thorough comparisons of budgeted to-date and actual spending amounts. And she questioned the differences between reporting categories such as “professional and outside services” and “personal services.”
Responding to various commissioners’ questions, Lang said it is possible the 2007 budget might have to be reconsidered.
“This is giving us a lot of homework,” he said.
Michael Becker, a voter education manager with the CCEC, said commission staff will work to alleviate all budgetary confusion on the 2007 budget.
“We’re going to bring it back and try to explain in more detail to the commissioners,” he said, of the budget. “We won’t leave any stone unturned so we can make it clear to the commission and to the public.
The $2.9 million operating budget for 2007 was approved in February by the commission after the measure was tabled the month before when Busching, a previous commission chairman, voiced concerns that sharp spending upswings were not “adequately justified to warrant such an increase.”
During January and February, commission members were presented with pre-amended reports of the CCEC’s 2006 spending containing the $2 million reporting error, according to the agency’s meeting minutes and documents.
Busching, after the Aug. 23 meeting, said she was satisfied with the commission staff members’ explanation that the misreporting was a formula error and she ruled out purposeful wrongdoing.
Even if presented with the correct spending figures in January and February the commission members still would have approved the 2007 budget, she said.
During the meeting, CCEC Chairman Gary Scaramazzo said the commission has admitted its reporting mistake, but defended the hefty voter education spending, saying “I’ll take education over ignorance.”
Eric Ehst, executive director of the Clean Elections Institute, said he regretted that opponents of publicly financed elections have focused on the error to discredit Arizona’s campaign finance system.
“It was a tempest in the teapot incident that was exploited by opponents of Clean Elections,” he said.