By Andy Sevilla
District 2 incumbent Becky Selbera received more than $1,000 in her bid for reelection without a campaign treasurer on file, a political maneuver prohibited by the state election rules.
“If you do not have an appointment of campaign treasurer on file, you may not accept campaign contributions or make campaign expenditures,” according to the state ethics commission’s instruction guide.
In her April 10 campaign finance report, Selbera closed her campaign treasurer appointment when she filed final report, per state ethics commission findings. In the final report, which covered her campaign’s political activity between Feb. 28 and April 10, she also indicated she did not anticipate further campaign contributions or political expenditures.
Five days after filing her final campaign report however, Selbera began once again taking in contributions toward her bid for reelection.
Selbera received $1,375 in contributions and expended $1,373.35 in political funds between April 11 and May 2, according to her latest campaign finance report due eight days before the May 10 election.
Selbera said she inadvertently filed a final report in April closing her treasurer appointment, a mistake she said was done amid the confusion of going through previously filed reports as a premise to file her April campaign finance activity.
“This is the first time this has happened on my form,” Selbera said in a Tuesday morning interview at the Kyle city attorney’s office. “This is not a continuation of anything; this is the first time that I’ve overlooked it. I did make a mistake.”
Selbera said she and the city secretary were shuffling through reports she previously filed in an effort to continue coverage of her campaign activity and report it as mandated by state law.
She said in the back-and-forth of examining her campaign finance reports, she mistakenly took her Jan. 15 office holder finance report, instead of her February reelection filing report, and filed her April 10 report based on the January information and “that’s how that got thrown in the, I say, mistake.”
“I accidentally overlooked that I was going to discontinue and close out the final report,” she said.
Kyle City Attorney Ken Johnson said that while there is no excuse to accept contributions and make expenditures without a campaign treasurer, sometimes the paperwork that is required is involved and mistakes are made.
“It’s not always clear,” he said. “… It’s not an easy river to follow; but again, that’s no excuse for not doing it right. It’s just that sometimes I can understand how people get confused” amid reporting campaign activity.
After the Hays Free Press brought the matter to light in the process of an investigative report, Selbera, with the city attorney’s help Tuesday morning, filed a correction/amendment for her April 10 campaign finance report.
In that correction, Selbera said she terminated her campaign treasurer, which is not what she intended to do.
Even though Selbera’s political contributions may have been obtained against the state ethics commission rules, Johnson said he was not aware of any law that required a candidate to return contributions received without a campaign treasurer on file.
“Sometimes they (candidates for office) do voluntarily, he said, it can be part of a plea bargain, it can be part of a judgment against them, if it went that far. But I don’t think there’s anything in the statute that orders them to return the funds.”
Selbera could be subject to a criminal Class A Misdemeanor, as well as civil penalties for accepting $1,375 and expending almost that much in political funds without a treasurer appointment.
And while that mistake was made, Selbera said there is no trust lost in her or in her 12-years as a public servant.
“I think that the trust is there with my constituents,” she said. “Because I just feel that if this was ongoing, like you said, which it’s not, this is the first time this has happened, and I will assure you it’s not going to happen again.”
