Mayoral candidate Whitney Tilson, a billionaire who used to run a prominent hedge fund, has had almost 70% of his claims for public matching funds rejected as “invalid” due to paperwork errors and other financial irregularities, according to records obtained by the Daily News.
Tilson campaign manager Trivette Knowles said Friday that Tilson has apologized to the Campaign Finance Board and is working on “rectifying our compliance mistakes,” blaming the paperwork errors on Roger That Compliance, a Washington, D.C. firm it recently hired to handle its compliance work. The campaign has since fired the firm, which it paid $3,000 last month, according to Knowles and city records.
Roger That Compliance president Blair Schuman declined to comment.
The finance records, provided to The News by the board in response to a Freedom of Information Law request, show Tilson’s campaign in the most recent reporting window submitted 932 contributions to the CFB to be boosted by its public matching program.
The program uses taxpayer cash to match donations from city residents to mayoral campaigns at an 8-to-1 rate up to $250, a structure that can net candidates millions of dollars in public funds.
But 638 of Tilson’s matching claims were deemed invalid by CFB auditors, a 68.4% denial rate, the records reveal.
The reasons for denial were varied. Dozens of claims were rejected because Tilson’s campaign hadn’t supplied the board with required “backup documentation,” the records say.
Regardless, Tilson has yet to meet the thresholds determining eligibility for public matching funds (candidates must raise at least $250,000 from 1,000 individual city residents to get payouts). The next matching funds disbursement is in April.
Tilson, a first-time political candidate, faces an uphill battle in June’s Democratic mayoral primary, as several polls project him receiving less than 1% support in the crowded field.
Before politics, Tilson ran Kase Capital, a hedge fund that at its peak managed nearly $200 million in assets. He shuttered the fund in 2017 after it started seeing losses.
Mayor Adams, who’s facing more than a half dozen challengers as he remains politically vulnerable amid his corruption indictment and low approval ratings, got 50% of his public matching funds denied during the reporting period that ended in December, a rate experts said at the time was also unusually high. The denials didn’t have a direct impact on Adams as the CFB’s blocking him indefinitely from receiving any matching funds due to his indictment.
The Democratic mayoral primary is set for June 24.