Spending Campaign Cash 2010: Texas State Rep. Carl Isett

State Representative Carl Isett is a certified public accountant in the Lubbock area. He has decided not to seek re-election, ending what seems to be a nice gravy train.

Background
In 2007, Isett's campaign was fined $6400 by the Texas Ethics Commission. He was required to refund his campaign over $25,000 for paying his wife $36,000 for "accounting services." The Texas Election Code specifically prohibits an officeholder from paying his or her spouse for personal services. After being caught, he paid over $39,000 to "Lubbock Bookkeeping Services" for the same services. It was later found that LBS was owned by his wife and had the same address as  Rep Isett's home address. The Texas Ethics Commission declined to take action on this. See Complaint 2707158.

$39,000 for Bookkeeping Services
From the Texas Ethics Commission records on Isett:

Year		Donations		Bookkeeping		Paid to
2000		$  55,095.00		$            -		NA
2001		$  35,851.00		$            -		NA
2002		$  85,701.00		$            -		NA
2003		$  77,070.00		$   1,700.00		The Tutoring Company, Cheri Isett Accounting
2004		$  56,102.00		$   9,815.00		Cheri Isett Accounting
2005		$177,106.00		$   9,787.00		Cheri Isett Accounting
2006		$  87,176.00		$ 15,700.00		Cheri Isett Accounting
2007		$  77,200.00		$ 39,158.00		Lubbock Bookkeeping Services
2008		$320,740.00		$ 12,693.00		Kathy Mears
2009		$  52,850.00		$ 30,475.00		Kathy Mears

Notice how during his first years in office, he did not pay for bookkeeping services. In 2003 he began to pay his wife a small amount for campaign accounting, which grew to tens of thousands of dollars, effectively channeling large sums of money from his campaign account into his personal household checking account. In 2007 more than half of his donations went to his wife's accounting firm, LBS and in 2009 over 60% of his donations went to a "Kathy Mears" (any relationship to Isett?) to manage his books. Now that Isett is retiring, this sweet deal to pad his or others income is ending.

Mileage
In 2009 Isett paid himself over $20,000 for mileage, doing the work of the people in his personal vehicle. Of this, over $6400 was reimbursed by the Texas Comptroller's office which he put back into his campaign leaving $13,600 in question. Usually if a person reimburses himself for mileage, this covers all the costs of maintaining the personal vehicle including gasoline, oil changes, tires, insurance, etc. There is just one question. Is it his personal vehicle?


The Truck.
According to his reports filed in 2004, Isett paid $12,386 for a truck to Pollard Ford from his campaign cash for "100% Business Use". Pollard later donated $3000 to his campaign. Isett also paid for a truck liner, new tires, brakes, oil changes, and insurance from the campaign cash. All of these expenditures are legal unless you take the mileage deduction. But, how can you claim $13,600 for use of a personal vehicle on a vehicle that is not personal? There is no record of the campaign selling the vehicle and returning the cash to the campaign, so it must be assumed he is still using it and claiming mileage for it.

End of the Gravy Train.
Isett had a good thing going paying his wife's company $39,000 from his donors' money to maintain his books and paying himself for mileage. With his retirement he has to deboard the gravy train. Don't look to the Ethics Commission to look into this situation.

The Sunset Commission
On a side note, Rep Isett presided over the Sunset hearing on the Texas Residential Construction Commission and led the charge to overturn the Sunset staff's recommendation to abolish it. After many months of work and large amounts of money spent during the legislative session to save it, the TRCC was eventually abolished. Isett could have saved the state and his builder buddies a lot of money.