Lt. Gov. John Rodgers’ campaign filings suggested he went $67,000 into debt last year, but that’s only because they contained what his campaign staff has acknowledged were “major” errors.
The flawed filings resulted from a combination of clerical errors by staff and a clunky campaign filing system that is confusing to use, Rodgers said recently. Candidates report their expenses and donations to the Secretary of State’s Office through an online portal. “The system sucks,” Rodgers said.
A December 15 filing showed his campaign spent $285,000 on his successful run for lieutenant governor but accepted only $218,000 in donations.
Jim Dandeneau, the outgoing executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, filed a complaint last month with Attorney General Charity Clark suggesting the large discrepancy was not just an error but “intentional obfuscation.”
But Rodgers’ campaign manager, Rep. Casey Toof (R-St. Albans Town), said the discrepancy stemmed not from undisclosed donations but from “two major errors” resulting in the double counting of campaign expenses. In an email last month to Clark, Toof explained that he reported on November 1 that the campaign spent $57,000 on television ads with the South Burlington-based Hen House Media.
But the campaign had split that expense evenly with Gov. Phil Scott’s campaign and had already reported it on October 15, he told Seven Days. The mistake made it look as if the campaign spent $57,000 more than it really had, Toof explained.
Similarly, the campaign reported paying $6,040 to an Illinois-based political communications firm for robocalls but counted that expense twice.
The errors occurred because mass media expenses of more than $500 made within 45 days of an election require separate filings. Toof said he didn’t realize those expenses were being double counted.
If the errors had been caught earlier, the campaign could have simply amended its filings, explained Sean Sheehan, Vermont’s director of elections and campaign finance. But because they weren’t discovered until this year, last year’s flawed reports will remain as filed, Sheehan said. It is now up to the campaign to file this year’s reports properly, he said.
Mass media filings “can be confusing,” he said. A new online campaign finance filing portal that went live this year should help prevent errors by pointing out to filers when things don’t add up, he said.
“The new system was built to be a little more user-friendly,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General said Rodgers “has been cooperative” with the investigation but declined further comment.
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