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Web Site Cost Questioned
By PETER MARCUS - October 22, 2006

Congressman Bob Beauprez has paid a company owned by his son-in-law $64,870 since last year to manage the operation of his gubernatorial campaign Web site. The cost reflects a $53,241 discrepancy between that of payment for his opponents Web site.

A search of “Web site” campaign expenditures filed with the Secretary of State’s office indicated that since October of last year, Bill Ritter’s camp has spent $11,629 on its gubernatorial campaign Web site. Almost all of those expenditures were made to Merchant Engine, LLC, a Web site developer operating out of Lakewood.

Beauprez’s Web site expenditures have all been made to Flat Creek Management, LLC, an operations management and outsourcing firm located in Washington, D.C. The company’s founder and president, Allen Fuller, is Beauprez’s deputy campaign manager and son-in-law. He and Beauprez’s daughter, Melanie Beauprez, are expecting their first child in April. Fuller also previously served as the press secretary and communications director for Beauprez.
Beauprez’s campaign manager, John Marshall, said the reason the expenditures are so high is because the campaign lumped Fuller’s consulting fees as deputy campaign manager together with the Web site development fee.

“It’s more of an accounting issue,” said Marshall. “It would be better [to split it up] but we only get a little room to explain the expenditures in the disclosure … it shows the limitations of the system.”

In Beauprez’s filings, separate listings are recorded for “campaign consulting” and “consulting,” but Marshall said the campaign decided it would be easier to combine Fuller’s services for the son-in-law’s particular case.

Colorado state law does not prohibit contributions from family members of a candidate as long as they are within the contribution limits allowed by law, said Dana Williams, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Gigi Dennis.

“If a tangible product is produced as a result of such services, ‘contribution’ includes the reasonable value of the materials involved, unless such value is negligible,” states Colorado State Law.

In other words, campaign expenditures to family members are allowed as long as the compensation is in line with fair-market value for the services.

Following this Denver Daily News report, ProgressNowAction.org is looking into plans to launch an investigation into the financial relationship between Beauprez and his son-in-law to determine if any campaign finance laws were broken, the organization said Friday.
“This is another example of Both Ways Bob at his worst,” said Michael Huttner, executive director of ProgressNowAction. “He asked the public to hold him accountable and now that we’re holding him accountable it turns out that he has been spending campaign resources well beyond the norm. There should be an immediate investigation as to whether Beauprez is violating any state laws.”

Filings with the Secretary of State’s office show that Beauprez’s Web site expenditures were just above average compared to Ritter’s Web site filings from October 2005 through April 2006. One payment on March 24 to Flat Creek Management, LLC, jumped from an average monthly payment of $2,108 to a single payment of $5,000.

But on May 15, Beauprez more than doubled that campaign Web site expenditure with a payment of $10,831 to Flat Creek Management, LLC. No other single payment has since been less than $5,900, and there was a Web site expenditure of $9,975 on June 30.
On the other hand, Ritter’s Web site expenditures have never topped $4,047 when on Aug. 10 a payment in that amount was made to Party2Win, based in Alexandria, Va. All other payments were made to Merchant Engine, LLC, never topping $2,062 with an average monthly payment of $947.

Ritter’s spokesman, Evan Dreyer, said at the beginning of their campaign, they were paying $300 every time a page was added to Ritter’s campaign Web site. But realizing that would add up, the campaign moved away from that format and now pay an hourly fee to Merchant Engine, LLC.

“I like our Web site — it’s functional and easy to navigate, and it displays a lot of information,” said Dreyer. “Maybe the Congressman’s son-in-law is ripping off the Congressman,” he joked.
“I feel like we get great service and a fantastic product for the amount of money we pay,” continued Dreyer. “Maybe [Beauprez] is paying too much, maybe he’s paying too much because it is his son-in-law.”

Marshall said the idea that the Beauprez campaign is paying more to Fuller because he is Beauprez’s son-in-law is not realistic because of the tight budget they are already operating off of.

“When working off of a budget as lean as we are, I can assure you that we don’t drop one dime that we don’t need to,” he said.
Records, however, filed with the Secretary of State indicate that Beauprez’s expenditures are for “Website” purposes. Local Web site design experts notice a significant discrepancy between Ritter and Beauprez’s site.

“My initial thought is that Beauprez has a more professional Web site, it’s more professionally done, [and] Ritter’s is more of an amateurish Web site,” said Chris Miller, a Web site designer with Denver-based Havoc Interactive.

He said that over the course of a year, it is possible that Beauprez could have spent $52,241 more on his Web site. He added that Web site designers take many factors into consideration, including additional features, content management, e-commerce, to name a few.
“From a design standpoint, Ritter could have gotten a better design for the money he spent,” said Miller.

Ivy Hastings, a Web designer with Denver-based Fusionbox, agreed.
“Ritter should have invested more in his Web presence for a much more professional result,” she said. “He tried to do it cheaply and it shows.”

That being said, after her firm analyzed each site for design, usability, search engine optimization, the quality of the HTML code, accessibility for sight-impaired users, server-side code, features, information, overall quality and budget, she determined that it is unlikely that Beauprez spent $64,870 on his Web site over the course of a year.

“Beauprez spent a lot of money — way too much money,” she said. “He easily could have had his site developed for half of what it cost.”

Fusionbox is a Denver Web Design Company.