SALT LAK CITY — A Utah House member running for state Senate is taking issue with his incumbent opponent receiving campaign contributions from a charter school management company.
Rep. Rich Cunningham, R-South Jordan, said it's wrong for American Preparatory Schools to donate to political candidates because it receives tax dollars.
American Preparatory Schools Inc. gave Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, $1,000 last November before the governor appointed him in December to replace Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, who resigned. It donated another $2,000 to Fillmore in January.
"We looked at all the other legislators out there. Nobody's ever received that kind of a donation," Cunningham said. "In our opinion, it's kind of like the Jordan School District writing me a check and supporting me to be re-elected."
Fillmore countered that "it's not like that at all."
American Preparatory Schools is a private, for-profit company that contracts and consults with charter schools in the U.S. and abroad, he said. It has campuses in Draper, West Valley City, Salem and Las Vegas, and a school in Zambia.
"(Cunningham) thought it was a charter school. It wasn't," said Fillmore, who runs a company called Charter Solutions, which processes payroll and billing for charter schools.
Fillmore said he's "surprised and disappointed" that Cunningham is making noise about the donations since the state elections office earlier this year found them legal. Fillmore said he'd rather talk about issues than "these distractions."
The lieutenant governor's office, with advice from the attorney general's office and the education community, looked into a complaint about the first contribution and deemed the donation proper, said Mark Thomas, state elections director.
He called it "legitimate, even though it looks a little weird."
Thomas said it is a "tricky" situation because American Preparatory Schools gets some of its income from public funds. But the contribution comes from the management company, not a charter school itself, he said.
Thomas likened it to a public school hiring a company to build a playground and then restricting how it could spend its money or telling public school teachers they can't use their salaries for political purposes. If the state started down the route, it would never fly, he said.
Thomas said the earlier complaint was aimed at American Preparatory Schools, not at Fillmore.
"We told Lincoln that everything was fine," he said.
Still, Cunningham said the contribution to Fillmore doesn't pass the smell test.
Cunningham, who vied for Osmond's seat last fall, Fillmore and Aleta Taylor will compete Saturday at the Salt Lake County Republican Party convention for the GOP nomination in Senate District 10.
Cunningham has collected enough signatures get on the primary election ballot under Utah's new election law. Fillmore and Taylor did not gather signatures and must win enough delegates to force a primary.
Democrat Dan Paget is also running for the office.
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