Finance records under scrutiny

Published: Friday, January 30, 1998

Friday, January 30, 1998

USAC: Spending reports from printing company contradict candidates

By Dennis Lim

Daily Bruin Contributor

Recently disclosed documents from the Elections Board appear to disprove charges that eleven Students First! candidates violated election bylaws last year.

However, information from the Agate Printing Company contradicts the documents from the Elections Board.

Former Finance Committee Chair Robert Rhoan said last Thursday that campaign expense reports were falsified and that candidates running on the Students First! slate exceeded the spending limit.

"The true cost of the sandwich boards that candidates used last year were not included in the expense reports," Rhoan said.

Rhoan also said that the actual cost of the posters worn by candidates would push the expenditures of the candidates over the limits.

The spending limit for all student government positions is $400, except for the office of president, which has a limit of $600.

According to the expense reports held by the Elections Board, none of the candidates named, who include Kandea Mosley, Carol Lee, Stacy Lee, Max Espinoza, Jo Anna Ley, An Le, Mike Hamilton, Samantha Gilardi, Darnell Grisby, Joe Medico and Juan Aguirre, exceeded their campaign spending limits.

However, speculation as to the validity of these reports has recently arisen.

John McMahon, chief financial officer of Agate Printing, the company that printed the materials, disputes the totals that appear on the election records.

"We charged them about $300 for a set of 50 posters. They requested 11 sets. Total, that came out to be around $3,500," McMahon said.

In fact, this is not the only difference between the campaign expense reports and the invoice supplied by the company.

The records from the candidate's expense reports show the total cost for Students First! posters at $1,082.39, while the invoice supplied by Agate Printing shows a total cost of $3,453.18.

The expense report also lists the total number of posters for each candidate at 30, at a cost of $3.03 each, while the invoice from the printing company shows that 50 were ordered for each candidate at a cost of $5.80 each.

McMahon said that he sent the invoice to numerous students involved in the campaigns, including Rhoan, Undergraduate Student Association Council (USAC) President Kandea Mosley and former Students First! representative Miho Murai.

"Whenever we talked to (Mosley), she would say she had no idea why she was getting the bill," said McMahon.

However, Mosley's campaign manager explained that candidates did not directly handle their own campaign expenses.

"We cut a flat check out to the (Students First!) board, who handled the expenses that were shared by all the candidates," said Lung Chi, Mosley's campaign manager last year.

"To my knowledge, all the candidates paid the amount for their campaign to their campaign managers. I did not pay any amount over what was outlined in the election code," Mosley said.

According to election board by-laws, "the provision of incorrect and/or incomplete information by an elected and certified candidate may result in the Election Board recommendation to USAC for an impeachment decision to begin."Source Documentation