When you give money to a political campaign, you hope it buys yard signs, billboards, mailers, and television commercials.
Vic Cummings is the Democratic candidate for St. Joseph County assessor. His campaign spent money at a liquor store. Twice.
Cummings’s campaign spent money at T-Mobile and Apple. The campaign spent money at Vrbo, for what the report calls “Housing” in Fort Wayne, and at gas stations in Fort Wayne and South Bend. The campaign spent money at Meijer, Sam’s Club, and Dollar General.
Cummings signed the report, under a printed promise that the report is “true, correct and complete.” Not one of its 35 payments says what the money was for.
The report also gets its own math wrong.
A campaign finance report works like a checkbook register. The back pages list every payment, one line at a time, with a subtotal at the bottom of each page. The summary sheet on the front adds those subtotals together.
Cummings’s report has five pages of payments. Their subtotals are $416.38, $1,652.48, $2,006.70, $313.44, and $906.88, for a total of $5,295.88. The summary sheet Cummings signed says the campaign spent $3,289.18.
The $2,006.70 difference is the subtotal of one page, to the penny. Add up the other four pages, and the total is exactly $3,289.18. The summary sheet skipped that one page. The skipped page holds both T-Mobile payments and the $462.50 Vrbo charge for “Housing” in Fort Wayne.
Because of that, the report overstates what is left in the campaign account. The summary sheet says the committee had $5,402.53 on hand on October 9. Count the skipped page, and the committee had $3,395.83.
His committee, Vic Cummings for County Assessor, filed the report with the county on October 15. The report covers April 11 through October 9.
The largest payment, $1,417.75 on May 7, went to Eco Owl Press of South Bend.
The next largest are harder to explain.
The campaign paid T-Mobile $1,088.35 in two payments, $584.48 on July 18 and $503.87 on August 18. The report does not say what either payment covered.
The campaign paid Vrbo, the vacation rental company, $538.40 in two charges. The first was $75.90 on August 26. The second, $462.50 on August 28, is listed as “Vrbo-Housing” with an address in Fort Wayne. Three days later, the campaign paid $60 at a gas station in Fort Wayne.
Only St. Joseph County voters cast ballots in the assessor’s race.
Cummings’s campaign spent $903.68 at grocery and discount stores: $316.52 at Meijer, $192.81 at Sam’s Club, $73.02 at Martin’s, $65.04 at Dollar General, $30.96 at CVS, $22.47 at Dollar Tree, $18.59 at Starbucks, $72.41 at Los Humildes, $98.99 at Lowery’s Meat Market, and $12.87 at Linden Grill. The campaign paid Apple $52.46. Gas came to $287.87 in all, counting the Fort Wayne stop.
Two payments remain. On September 23, I reported that Cummings wrote on his public Facebook account on April 11, 2010: “I do NOT n any way shape or forum support Drunk Driving But….. I do drink&drive!”
The campaign paid Belmont Bev, at an address the report gives as Portage Road in South Bend, $20.31 on August 12. The campaign paid the same store $20.31 again on August 22. Belmont Beverage, a liquor chain, runs a store at 3320 Portage Ave. in South Bend.
On Sunday morning, I sent Cummings a text message asking what the Fort Wayne Vrbo and gas payments were for. The message shows as read. He had not answered by the time this column was published.
Logan Foster
Logan Foster is the founder and editor of Redress South Bend, an independent news outlet covering local government, courts, and public institutions in South Bend and St. Joseph County, Indiana. He reports from primary documents: public records requests, court filings, state audit reports, and campaign finance disclosures. His reporting has examined city and school district payments made without competitive bidding, school board spending, and the records of candidates in county races. Redress South Bend obtained the South Bend Police Department's ShotSpotter coverage map after the department initially denied public access. The outlet is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Online News Association. Reach him at info@redresssouthbend.com
