Daniel Rizzo, a Revere city councillor and former mayor, entered into a disposition agreement with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to resolve recordkeeping and reporting issues from 2015 through 2017.
To resolve the issues, Rizzo agreed to reduce by $25,000 a portion of the liability that the committee owes to him personally.
The committee also agreed to file additional campaign finance reports with OCPF and to provide bank statements, checks and other records with each report filed through Dec. 31, 2019.
The committee will continue to file with the Revere Election Commission on the regular schedule for Revere City Council candidates.
“The most important issue was that there was no misuse of funds,†Rizzo said Friday afternoon. “I acknowledge I had too many people working on my campaigns.â€
Rizzo was a city councilor until 2011, then served as mayor until 2015 and then returned to the city council in 2017.
“I’ve raised over a $1 million in the past 20 years,†Rizzo said.
OCPF’s review of the Rizzo Committee’s reports and bank records determined that the committee did not disclose $7,325 in contributions, and reported another $2,250 in receipts that were not deposited into the campaign account.
The committee also did not disclose $8,407 in expenditures, and reported two expenditures that never cleared the account, one for $9,000 and the other for $250.
OCPF’s review also noted the following issues:
- The committee received and deposited $1,260 in checks from business entities. Candidate committees are prohibited from accepting contributions from corporations, LLCs, LLPs and partnerships.
- The committee carried forward an incorrect balance that preceded 2013, which overstated its reported ending balance by approximately $17,850 on its 2012 year-end report. Consequently, each subsequent report filed by the committee also reflected significant incorrect starting and ending balances.
- During 2016 and 2017, the committee inadvertently posted duplicate entries for nine expenditures, totaling $4,477.
- The committee filed an inaccurate 2015 year-end report by disclosing that it paid $9,000 to a scholarship fund on Oct. 21, 2015, to disgorge prohibited funds it unknowingly received from employees of a waste disposal company*. The payment was actually made on Jan. 25, 2016, using the candidate’s personal funds.
The committee amended its campaign finance reports and made a one-time accounting adjustment of approximately $19,000.
The disposition agreement was signed by Rizzo and OCPF Director Michael J. Sullivan. A disposition agreement is a voluntary written agreement entered into between the subject of a review and OCPF, in which the subject agrees to take certain specific actions.
“I thank the office of campaign finance for their help in getting this resolved. It had to be addressed and fixed,†Rizzo said.
