Jungbauer Campaign Responds to Finance Criticisms

Michael Jungbauer, a Republican seeking re-election in Senate District 48, has responded to criticisms over his campaign finance report from August 28, 2006 citing computer problems that resulted in errors in the report. In an email, he said: "My hard drive went out on my computer, non recoverable, I've never had a problem so I didn't have a backup. While having help re-inputting from paper records some things didn't get classified right."

As to the $600 donation from Anoka Air Charter, Jungbauer responded that it was a personal donation from Mike Hayes and his wife who are owners of Anoka Air Charter. Jungbauer asserted that he doesn't accept corporate contributions. However, I asked Anoka Air Charter if they contributed to Jungbauer's campaign and they responded: "Yes, Anoka Air Charter, Inc. and Crossroads Aviation, LLC did contribute to the campaign."

Jungbauer did not defend accepting the amount of the $600 donation, which was over limit for individual contributions.

As for his expenditures on aviation insurance and model airplanes, Jungbauer responded: "The insurance was for an aviation fund raiser that we put on. The building that we rented for the fund raiser was owned by historic aviation, a seller of aviation models, so in the title of the receipt/ billing, it says aviation models."

Jungbauer says that the campaign is filing an amended report with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure board: " We were just in a hurry rebuiling the file in order to file a report in a timely manner. We were not trying to create controversy."