A Spokane political committee will pay $7,000 for failing to properly report some $94,000 it spent to help two city council candidates win in the 2015 municipal elections.
Spokane for Honest Government, which got the bulk of its money that year from the local firefighters union and its political action committee, spent the money on independent ads backing council candidates Karen Stratton and Lori Kinnear, who were both elected.
But the organization did not follow state law for accounting for most of its independent expenditures.
It should have reported where it spent the money, and for whom, within 24 hours of buying the ads, the Public Disclosure Commission was told Thursday by its investigator. It didn’t file the proper reports until June 2016.
Because of the late filing, the public had no way of knowing the source of those ads before the election, Chad Standifer, an assistant attorney general, said.