Committee says Diaz overspent

After reviewing business manager candidate Jose Diaz’s campaign expenditures, the ASUM elections committee recommended he not be permitted to serve office next year if elected next week.

The committee’s recommendation will go before the senate during Wednesday’s meeting. If the senate upholds the recommendation, any votes Diaz receives will not count.

On April 11 the chair of the elections committee Rikki Gregory received complaints that Diaz overspent the $100 allowed for campaigning. Sunday she asked Diaz for a copy of his receipts. He turned them in to Gregory last Wednesday at 6 p.m.

The committee added up his total expenditures Friday and came up with $134.16, well over the $100 allowed to business manager candidates.

During the Friday meeting in the UC, the committee met with Diaz in to discuss problems with his expenditures. The first problem the committee had with Diaz’s expenditures was the prices he claimed for paper and ink toner.

Gregory said typically candidates that print fliers at their home claim the going rate of copying from Campus Quick Copy.

But the prices for ink toner and paper that Diaz claimed were the cheapest prices he would’ve paid if he had ordered the items online. In his expenditure report he didn’t include the shipping price for either of the items.

The committee said he needed to either include shipping in his prices because prices of these items in stores already include shipping, or claim prices from an office supply store such as Staples.

The other problem they had with Diaz’s list of expenditures was that he turned in a receipt from FedEx Kinko’s dated April 15. The receipt was supposed to be for his cutting order placed on April 7. Diaz said the receipt was dated April 15 because that is when he asked FedEx Kinko’s to reprint it because he had lost it.

During the meeting ASUM president Dustin Leftridge called FedEx Kinko’s where they told Leftridge there was no record in their computer system of a transaction for $2.98 on April 7, only on April 15 and 16.

“I don’t know why they don’t have it,” Diaz said. “Maybe someone messed up on their till.”

Diaz said he and his roommate went to FedEx Kinko’s on April 7 and his roommate paid for the fliers while Diaz waited in the car.

Gregory told Diaz that if he could show them a receipt for FedEx Kinko’s from April 7 then there wouldn’t be a problem. He said he was going to visit FedEx Kinko’s after the meeting.

“I’ve been looking for the receipt like crazy,” Diaz said. “I have no idea where that receipt is.”

With Diaz unable to produce the receipt, the committee assumed he distributed the fliers he had cut at Campus Quick Copy for $30 and not the fliers that were cut at FedEx Kinko’s for $2.98.

The committee decided that if Diaz finds the missing receipt before the ASUM senate meeting on Wednesday at 6 p.m., it would reconvene to discuss the issue again.

The committee decided to leave Diaz on the ballot because by Wednesday’s senate meeting elections will have already begun. Gregory said the committee didn’t recommend removing Diaz from the ballot because it wouldn’t be fair to Eric Mundt, a candidate for business manager until he was ousted in the primary elections. She said if they put Mundt back on the ballot he would have lost a week and a half of campaigning time and that isn’t fair.

Diaz said he used his own materials to make his fliers. The shipping costs on the Internet didn’t help his campaign in anyway and shouldn’t be included in his campaign expenditures.

“I’ve made a good faith effort to not overspend,” Diaz said. “I don’t feel the committee’s recommendation fits the charge.”