Campaign Expenses

One of the few issues that has bipartisan agreement is that there is way too much money in political campaigns. Candidates can spend more money to get elected to an office than the actual office pays. This is not because they are frivolous with money but instead because there is often an expected return on their investment. This expectation is true for both donor-funded and self-funded campaigns and is why donors and expenses must be disclosed.

If a campaign is funded by donors or is self-funded and has over $5,000 in expenditures, campaign disclosures must be filed with the Illinois Board of Elections. The link to lookup campaign disclosures by candidate can be found HERE.

When a candidate is already in office, a useful tool is to compare their donors to the City’s Public Documents Portal by putting the donor’s name/business in the search bar and then sorting by “date created” to check if the donor has received any contracts or payments from the City. In this case, often the donation can be viewed as not only an investment in future returns but also as a “thank you” for past favors. The link to do that can be found HERE.

As with my City Council campaigns, this campaign will be entirely self-funded with spending below the $5,000 threshold so I am not required to file with the Illinois Board of Elections. However, campaigns should have absolute transparency and an accurate reporting of all spending so I will be providing a running tally on all campaign expenditures on this page.

To start, the Mayor of McHenry’s salary is $15,000/year. My salary as a member of City Council is $280/month after taxes. For this campaign, I have budgeted $3,920, or 14 months of my after-tax City Council salary.

CAMPAIGN EXPENSES REPORTING:

December 4th, 2024

$14 purchase of website domain through Squarespace

December 31st, 2024

$20 monthly hosting fee for website through Squarespace

* While the prepaid yearly rate of $16/month is the better deal, keeping the website live for four months through April 30th at $25/month is the more financially-sound decision. By only paying for four months at the full price rate, I am saving $92 over the yearly subscription. Additionally, I received $5 off the first month by using a 20% off coupon code.

January 2nd, 2025

$1,000.46 purchase for door hangers through Vistaprint

* After doing a price comparison between purchasing the higher cost door hangers and the lower cost flyers with plastic bags to hang on doors, the door hangers were about 10% more expensive. However, purchasing door hangers eliminated the need to use plastic and saved time by not requiring placing flyers in plastic bags.

CURRENT TOTAL $1,034.46