I got the letter from the Knox County Election Commission that they promised would come. Clifford Rodgers, Administrator of Elections, tells me that I have to file a year-end supplemental campaign financial disclosure report. The report needs to cover the period from the date of filing of my Appointment of Political Treasurer form through January 15, 2020. I have to file the Financial Disclosure with the Knox County Election Commision no later than January 31, 2020.

My Appointment of Political Treasurer form is dated November 24, 2019 and it was stamped received by the Election Commission on November 25, 2019. I’m going with the former date, just to be safe. If you want to check out the original, you can look my filed forms up here. Once the Financial Disclosure form is filed, they’ll scan it and put it there as well.

I’m going to be as transparent as possible about everything in my campaign. Yeah, the forms are available at the Election Commission website, but I’m going to make it super easy for you. Every time I have to file with the Election Commission, I’m going to do a post like this with the same info that I’m including in the form. Here you go…

My Donations:

  • This one is pretty easy, since the only donations my campaign has received are two $500 transfers I’ve made to myself. The first on November 27, 2019 and the second on January 9, 2020.

My In-Kind Contributions:

  • In addition to cash/checks a candidate receives, we must also put down any contributions of stuff, rather than just money. I’ve had two of those.
  • On November 26, 2019, I paid $18 to wordpress for the URL that I’m using for my campaign website – www.fro4knox4.com. You know that one, because that’s where you are now. I paid this amount just on one of my credit cards, rather than from funds I had donated to my campaign, so that’s what makes this an in-kind contribution.
  • On January 5, 2020, I paid $12 to Google for the other URL I have, which redirects to my main page. That one is www.toddfrommeyer.com. Same deal here, I just put it on one of my credit cards, not from campaign funds.

My Expenditures:

  • I used Vistaprint.com for some campaign business cards. Cost – $132.94
  • I used Vistaprint.com for some campaign door hangers. Cost – $193.06
  • I used Logojoy (looka.com) and did some logo design. Cost – $74.74
  • I went back to Vistraprint.com for a self-inking stamp. Cost – $18.55
  • I made the required donation to the Tennessee Democratic Party, in order to be given access to the Democrats’ database, VoteBuilder. Cost – $175.00
  • The total amount of expenditures for the period was $594.29

There were pages on the form for Itemized Statement of Loans and Itemized Statement of Obligations. I didn’t have any of those this period.

The Summary page shows that I had $1030 in receipts this period and $624.29 in expenditures. My cash on hand is $450.71.

I note that, according to the rules, I did not have to put the expenditures of more than $100 on my Itemized Statement of Expenditures. I could have, instead, put them in Section 19 (page 2) of the form and just categorized them generally. I had so few expenditures and I’m trying to be super transparent, so I didn’t see any need to do that.

I also think it’s interesting to note that I would have been exempt from detailed disclosure if I had kept my contributions (including in-kind) at $1000 or less AND my expenditures at $1000 or less. So, if I had just made the second donation to my campaign $470 or less, then I could have gotten away with submitting a 1 page form.

Like I said, interesting, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. I would have put all the info out there in any case.

So, now the form is filled out, I just need to get my signature, the signature of my treasurer (the fantabulous Susan Beth Frommeyer, M.D.) and a couple of witnesses (probably my mom and my mother-in-law, both of whom reside with us). Then I turn it in to the Election Commission before Friday. I’m going to the County Commission meeting on Monday, so I may try and stop by there first, if I can get there before 4:30.

If you’ve been reading the posts I’ve been putting here on the ol’ campaign website, you no doubt read the one titled My Platform – Part 2: Big Money is the Problem in Politics. You can see from my financial disclosure that I’m trying to do things differently. I may get some donations other than from myself as the campaign goes on, but I doubt it will be much. I’m not accepting the big money donations and PAC money that other candidates are taking. If I’m out knocking on doors, I’m not going to be asking for money. I’m going to get to know people and ask them what they think. You won’t see a “donate now” button on my campaign website. But I want to say a couple of things about my finances.

First, I’m not in this race just to be a name on the line. I am in this race to win it. Knox County needs some Commissioners who will listen to all of the people, not just the ones who can write $500 and $1000 checks. So, yeah, I’m not going to raise big money and I’m not going to spend big money. I’m going to meet people and learn the issues and outwork whichever Republican comes out of the primary on March 3. And, hey, maybe I’ll get some help along the way. Help to knock doors or to make phone calls or just to spread the word. I hope you’ll join me.

Second, just as my financial disclosure is going to be online soon, so will the financial disclosures of all of the candidates running for County Commission. And other races too. I have worked on the assumption that the Republicans in my race are going to do what I’ve seen pretty much all of the Republican candidates do for the last two election cycles (2016, 2018). They raise a bunch of money from people who can write the big checks and spend that money in the traditional ways. If the Republicans in my race do that, you can be sure you’ll hear about it often from me.