A state representative who says she doesn’t review her campaign finance reports before they’re filed is blaming poor bookkeeping for several egregious items on her reports that create a distasteful appearance.
As reported by the Albuquerque Journal’s Thom Cole, Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert, R-Corrales, used more than $2,000 from her campaign account in 2006, 2007 and 2008 to pay for costs of attending out-of-state government conferences. Then she was reimbursed by the state, but there’s no record that she ever paid that money back to her campaign account.
That’s an eyebrow-raising situation, to say the least.
But it gets worse. She reported spending campaign money to pay for lodging and meals on those trips even though she received per diem from the state to cover those costs. There’s no record, again, of her reimbursing her campaign account.
To top it off, she used more than $400 in 2007 to pay for a massage, a gym fee, car washes, water, clothes, jewelry and other stuff at department stores, according to her report.
Uh… Yes, really. According to the Journal, Powdrell-Culbert says she “must have accidentally included some receipts for personal purchases when she gave receipts for campaign items to her accountant. She says she was unaware the personal purchases had been included in a report to the Secretary of State’s Office.”
As for the lack of documentation indicting that she reimbursed her campaign account for travel expenses, she told the Journal she isn’t trying to enrich herself at taxpayer expense.
“I’m not paying attention on my part. A lot of times I get so busy,” the Journal quoted her as saying. “It’s not even an attempt to make money … cheat the state.”
“A big oops” is how Cole describes Powdrell-Culbert’s explanation. The creation of an appearance of impropriety is what I call it. Assuming this is all shoddy bookkeeping on her part, there’s still no excuse for it.