Question
What can I do with my surplus funds?
Answer

A candidate may dispose of surplus funds using one or more of these options:

  1. Refund the contribution(s). Don't return more money to a contributor than you received from that source!
  2. Reimburse yourself for earnings lost as a result of your campaign activities. Lost earnings must be verifiable as unpaid salary, or if you are not salaried, the amount reimbursed should not exceed income received by you for services rendered during an appropriate, corresponding time period.
  3. Transfer the surplus without limit to a political party or to a caucus political committee.
  4. Make a donation to a charity that is registered with the Secretary of State's office.
  5. Give it to the state treasurer for the state's general fund, the oral history, state library, and archives account, or the legislative international trade account.
  6. Spend it on non-reimbursed public office-related expenses if you are elected. You must register a surplus funds account with the Public Disclosure Commission and file surplus funds account expenditure reports if you choose this option. A "non-reimbursed public office-related expense" is an expenditure incurred by an elected or appointed official, or a member of his or her immediate family, solely because of being an official. [WAC 390-24-032] If the official incurs a non-reimbursed public office-related expense that also, in any manner, could be considered personal in nature, PDC staff recommends paying the expenditure with personal funds, and then seeking reimbursement from a surplus funds account only for that specific portion that is directly related to his or her elected office.
  7. Leave the surplus funds in the campaign account for possible use in a future election campaign for the same office that you were campaigning for when the contributions were received. Surplus funds may be spent on a campaign for a different office, but only with the contributor's written permission. This means that you would have to work through the last contributors to the earlier campaign and determine who gave the contributions that remain on hand. Then, contact those contributors and ask them for written permission. Once you obtain written permission, the surplus funds may be transferred to the new campaign as a lump sum.