Senator will repay
money to campaignCal Kawamoto spent election
funds on gas, repairs and
insurance for his personal van
State Sen. Cal Kawamoto has agreed to repay his campaign after a Star-Bulletin investigation found that the legislator spent thousands of dollars in campaign money to repair, insure and gas up his personal van.
In a Feb. 25 letter, Gerald Y. Ushijima CPA, the Kawamoto campaign's accounting firm, acknowledged that the lawmaker's campaign did not have legal title to the van, which is required for him to receive any reimbursements for the car's costs.
Ushijima did not specify the amount that Kawamoto would repay his campaign.
Kawamoto (D, Waipahu) declined comment, saying only that his campaign has resolved the matter involving his car.
Ushijima's letter was written after the Star-Bulletin reported on Feb. 22 that Kawamoto spent more than $21,000 in campaign funds for car repairs, auto insurance premiums, gasoline and traffic fines for his personal van.
The questionable expenditures are a focus of a state Campaign Spending Commission investigation into Kawamoto's campaign.
Kawamoto acquired the van, a 1992 Dodge, before he was elected to office and registered it in his name. Kawamoto replaced the van last year with a Subaru truck, which he purchased with $22,500 in campaign funds.
The truck is registered in the name of his campaign.
Under state rules, elected officials can use campaign funds to pay for a car, its repairs, gasoline and insurance only if the vehicle is legally registered to his campaign and is used for campaign work.
When the candidate is the legal owner, he can only seek reimbursement for business mileage. The reimbursement rate, set by the Department of Accounting and General Services, is 32 cents a mile.
In the letter, the Ushijima firm said Kawamoto will ask his campaign to reimburse him for business mileage driven. The firm said that it has received information from Kawamoto to calculate the mileage reimbursement.
In an interview with the Star-Bulletin last month, Kawamoto said 90 percent of the expenses associated with his vehicles are campaign-related.
Kawamoto said he runs up between 16,000 and 17,000 miles a year of travel on behalf of nonprofit agencies and community groups on whose boards he serves.
He said he believes that any travel expense related to those boards are legitimate campaign expenses.
If his campaign were to reimburse him for all of the mileage expenses he has accrued since 1994, it would owe him more than $40,000, Kawamoto added.
Kawamoto, chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations, is a longtime opponent of efforts to reform Hawaii's campaign-spending laws.
Earlier this year, he introduced legislation that would have given the Senate the power to hire and fire the Campaign Spending Commission's executive director and audit its finances. The Senate shelved both proposals.
Bob Watada, the commission's executive director, declined comment, saying only that his agency's investigation is pending.