A WJXT Target 4 investigation finds questionable spending at a foundation run by candidate for Florida Governor, Jeb Bush.
Broadcast air date: March 4, 1998
The Foundation for Florida's Future, as it is called, has spent less than a third of its money on its programs. Most of the money has been spent on salaries for staff.
NewsChannel 4 investigative reporter Paul Van Osdol brings us the details:
Bush started the foundation to wage a campaign of ideas after his last campaign for governor ended with a loss to Lawton Chiles. Once again Bush is running for the state's highest office. We decided to examine his foundation by following the money:
November 1994: Jeb Bush loses his bid for governor but he does not fade from the spotlight. Instead he starts a non-profit group... the Foundation for Florida's Future. The foundation publishes a quarterly magazine and newsletter promoting conservative issues. It also helps open a charter school in Miami.
And it keeps Bush in the headlines as he plans another run for governor. But a NewsChannel 4 review of the foundation's tax records shows when it comes to spending money on its own programs... the foundation falls far short of national standards for non-profits.
In 1995 and 1996 the foundation had total expenses of $1.3 million dollars... only $350,000 went to its programs... 27% of the total.
Linda Tuday of the United Way says non-profit charities it supports spend at least 85 percent of expenses on programs.
Linda Tuday -- UNITED WAY: "It's a concern because we want obviously as much money as possible to go into direct services, to make sure people in our community who desperately need the help get the services they deserve."
The biggest expense for the Foundation for Florida's Future is administrative salaries. Still... Bush says it's misleading to compare his foundation to most other nonprofits.
Jeb Bush -- (R) CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR: "It's not a philanthropy. It's a think-tank, a do-tank. It was involved with advocating ideas. You should compare us with organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, the James Madison Institute."
We did the comparison...and those two think tanks spend far more on programs.
The Tallahassee-based James Madison Institute spent 79 percent of its funds on programs last year and the Washington-based Heritage Foundation spent 84 percent.
The most high-profile project of Bush's foundation was the charter school in Liberty City... an impoverished section of Miami. But records show the foundation gave the school only two percent of the money it raised... $33,000. It also loaned the school 40-thousand dollars.
School officials are now using the foundation's web page to plead for books, furniture and other supplies.
Jeb Bush: "That was just the direct contribution but if you look at the manpower, all the accounting work for the school for its first year was done by employees of the foundation. For tax purposes, whatever report you're seeing none of that stuff was allocated to the school but in terms of the actual work the school took up a lot of time."
Bush says Cory Tilley the foundation's former executive director spent most of his time helping start the school. Tilley is now Bush's campaign spokesman.
When Bush resigned from the foundation's board last year to run for governor, the office moved right here to downtown Jacksonville, just down the street from the office of the foundation's new chairman, Mayor John Delaney.
The mayor says he's not bothered by the low spending on programs. He says it's just a bookkeeping issue.
John Delaney -- (R) MAYOR OF JACKSONVILLE: "It was not a political operation. It was an operation to do the school, put out these publications, put on seminars and sessions and workshops across the state and I think it's done an awful lot of that."
The foundation's overhead has been cut considerably since Delaney became chairman. That's because most of the staff left. They're now running Bush's campaign for governor.
Delaney says the foundation is spending about 10 percent of its budget on the charter school this year. Of course, with the staff reduction the budget has gone down quite a bit.
It appears the foundation will be an issue in this year's governor's race. The campaign manager for Democratic candidate Buddy MacKay says our findings reinforce his belief that the foundation's main purpose was to provide a place for Bush's campaign staff.