A dearth of records filed with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission has led to little being known about the financial backers of this year’s slate of candidates for the Brick Township Board of Education.
This year’s race featured two tickets – Melita Gagliardi and Daisy Haffner, and Victor Finamore and John O’Rourke – running for office as well as two solo candidates – Walter Campbell and Madeline Colagiovanni Iannarone.
Only Campbell has filed forms beyond the initial organizational forms required to be filed by each candidate or ticket. In Campbell’s form, he specified that his campaign will spend less than the $4,500 required under state law to generate a report on expenditures or contributions.
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Iannarone has not yet filed any forms with the commission, a search of the agency’s database showed.
In New Jersey, candidates running jointly for boards of education are required to file the C-1 form, listing all contributions in excess of $300 in the aggregate from one source in an election. The C-1 forms, if required, are to be filed 29 days and 11 days before the election and 20 days after the election, and within 48 hours of receiving any contribution $1,400 or more within the 13 days leading up to election day.
If a group of candidates spends more than $12,300 (or $4,500 for a single candidate), they must also file an R-1 form, which is a more complete accounting of the campaign’s donations and expenditures, and lists all contributions in excess of $300.
A complaint filed with ELEC against a four-person ticket that successfully took control of the board last year is still pending. The complaint contained numerous allegations related to the reporting of expenditures and donations taken in by the campaign.