The mystery behind NJEA President Sean Spiller’s $45 million run for governor just got more mysterious. A recent IRS filing revealed that the NJEA’s Super PAC, Garden State Forward, sent an additional $1 million to AP Consulting Firm in support of Spiller’s vanity run. Recall that the NJEA-funded, pro-Spiller Super PAC Working New Jersey previously sent $8.3 million to AP Consulting for statewide canvassing (door-to-door voter solicitation) for Spiller. Now that’s a total of $9.3 million. But what makes this expenditure look suspicious is that AP consulting is a tiny Newark firm with no apparent expertise in canvassing and $9.3 million is an enormous sum of money to spend on canvassing — many multiples of what any other candidate spent. Will there ever be an accounting of what went on at AP Consulting? Will New Jersey teachers ever find out how this $9.3 million of their dues was spent?
AP Consulting Firm. Politico previously described the $8.3 million expenditure as “odd-seeming” and AP Consulting as “a tiny company run by former Newark Board of Education member Ariagna Perello that specializes in tax prep.” Sunlight found AP Consulting’s Facebook page, which lists accounting services, tax preparation, insurance, translations, airline tickets, divorce, and event promotion. Nothing related to canvassing whatsoever. According to Politico, the canvassing field operations were run by James Souder, who was a major in the National Guard and:
… briefly Newark’s director of neighborhood and recreational services but stepped down amid an alleged nude photo incident and general dissatisfaction with his job performance, and later served as a legislative director for the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
We cannot discern the expertise that would justify $8.3 million in payments, let alone $9.3 million.
An extremely large expenditure for canvassing. As Politico also pointed out, $8.3 million was an extremely large amount for canvassing. Working New Jersey “spent as much just on canvassing as his rival candidates’ actual campaigns are allowed to spend, period.” It was over 10x what gubernatorial candidate and Newark mayor Ras Baraka spent. Now that’s $9.3 million and 13x.
Sunlight did the math: Working New Jersey’s Craig Varoga stated that its canvassing operations knocked on 900,000 doors and had a quarter million conversations with prospective voters, so $9.3 million means $10.38 per door knocked, or $37.38 per conversation. How much is that per hour? It turns out Mr. Souder’s canvassers were exceptionally well-paid. Why?
ALL from teachers’ dues and teachers deserve an accounting. The bottom line is that this is a suspiciously large expenditure, and because Garden State Forward was the source for all of the $9.3 million, that means that all of this was paid for by teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues. Teachers deserve an accounting of how and why $9.3 million was sent to AP Consulting.
And another sign of the lack of NJEA member support for Spiller. We also note that the additional $1 million to AP Consulting was for “Member Communications,” which we take to mean NJEA member communications. Think about that: despite inundating members with thousands of mailers and the months of free “Spiller for Governor” ads and notices in NJEA Review, the NJEA had to pay an additional $1 million to get out the member vote. This further underscores that despite NJEA leadership’s claims to the contrary, NJEA members were not volunteering to help get out the vote for Spiller, and NJEA leadership had to bring in AP Consulting to do the work.
What a scam.