Kansas Democratic Party faces fine after federal audit of financial records

The Kansas Democratic Party has agreed to pay a $19,000 fine to the Federal Election Commission after an audit uncovered inaccurate record-keeping during the 2012 election cycle.

The party misreported its cash on hand throughout 2011 and 2012 and failed to maintain monthly payroll logs, according to the audit. It understated its contributions in 2012 by $122,088 and understated its spending by $162,640, according to the audit, which was released last week.

“None of our current staff worked at the Party at that time,” said Ethan Corson, the state party’s spokesman. “That said, we have still undertaken numerous steps to prevent any errors in the future, such as increasing the amount of compliance training staff receive, and bringing more compliance functions in-house.”

The audit covers 2011 and 2012, a period when former Kansas Revenue Secretary Joan Wagnon was serving as state Democratic chair. Wagnon stepped down in 2015.

“I know about the audit,” Wagnon said. “I didn’t know about the conclusion of the audit. I’m sort of surprised there was a fine. ... I thought it had all been resolved.”

“I know that there was a problem and I thought it was fixed. I don’t even remember the nature of the problem. … As far as I’m concerned, that’s water over a bridge that’s been long gone.”

This story was originally published November 6, 2017 at 11:41 AM with the headline "Kansas Democratic Party faces fine after federal audit of financial records."