Numerous purchases made by Lt. Gov. Mark Darr during the past year and a half that he listed as fundraising expenses on campaign finance reports will now come out of what his campaign still owes Darr for loans he made during his 2010 run, his staff said Friday.

How much will be reclassified isn’t yet clear.

Darr, who is running for a U.S. House seat in the 4th Congressional District, filed a “citizen complaint” with the state Ethics Commission on Friday detailing problems with the reports.

Earlier in the week, liberal blogger and lawyer Matt Campbell questioned several thousand dollars in expenses on Darr’s campaign finance reports, spending that Darrreported as supporting fundraisers to retire the debt.

Graham Sloan, executive director of the Ethics Commission, was not reached for comment late Friday in a call to his office.

In a statement, Darr describes the problems as mistakes made by someone who hadn’t run for office before.

“While it’s important to note that I had no malice intent, I should have paid better attention to detail throughout this process,” he said.

In his 2010 race, Darr loaned his campaign $170,310. On the campaign finance report he submitted Dec. 31, 2010, Darr reported having $115,767 in the bank that he planned to carry over to the next election instead of paying himself back.

“I should have used that cash balance to reduce outstanding debt, instead of keeping that balance to pay campaign and debt fundraising expenditures directly,” he states in the complaint.

Quarterly reports filed since then show Darr paid thousands for “supplies,” such as $145 at Belk in Rogers on Nov. 21, 2011; $172 at Dillard’s on Dec. 1, 2011; $124 at Jos A. Bank on June 20, 2011; and $101 on July 27, 2011, at Prime Mart in Austin, Texas.

The reports also show he paid $1,500 to the University of Arkansas for a fundraiser in September 2011. Campbell reported Wednesday that the money went to Razorback ballgames.

UA records show that on Aug. 31, 2011, Darr purchased four football tickets at $255 each for football games in Fayetteville and four tickets at$120 each for games in Little Rock, Campbell said. A UA spokesman confirmed that the school provided these records regarding season football tickets to Campbell.

Darr campaign spokesman Chase Dugger said the campaign is still going through the half a dozen reports to determine which expenses were made to help with fundraising to retire the loan debt, and which were not.

Those expenses that aren’t fundraising related will be shown as going toward repaying Darr for the loan, according to the complaint.

Dugger said he doesn’t yet know which expenses will be reclassified or how much they are worth. He said the figure should be availablenext week.

“If I had a number I would be happy to give it to you, but I’m not entirely sure what’s been done at this point,” he said.

The complaint states that Darr under-reported the debt still owed to him by the campaign on his December 2011 report and carried that error forward on every report since.

Campbell said he filed a detailed complaint of his own with the Ethics Commission on Friday afternoon, asking that Darr be required to establish how each expense was related to a debt-retirement fundraiser.

“Ninety-five percent of the stuff on there looks to have no ties to debt reduction whatsoever,” Campbell said by phone.

He said it isn’t right to have some of the expenses counted toward reducingDarr’s campaign debt.

“There’s nothing in the rules that says after the election you can spend the funds and … basically use your entire campaign account as an ATM that you can sort of write checks against,” Campbell said.

The lieutenant governor is paid $41,896 a year, presiding over the state Senate when it’s in session and acting as governor when the governor is out of state.

Darr is the second Arkansas politician this month to face numerous questions about his use of campaign donations.

Paul Bookout, a Democrat from Jonesboro, resigned from the state Senate late Tuesday - four days after the Arkansas Ethics Commission fined him $8,000 and issued him a public letter of reprimand.

According to the commission, Bookout violated state law by making personal use of $53,305.07 of his campaign funds, not keeping campaign funds separate from personal funds, failing to maintain proper records and not itemizing 93 campaign expenses totaling $39,647.

The commission said Bookout transferred more than $18,000 of his campaign funds into his own bank account and withdrew an additional $6,760 in cash from his campaign account, used more than $5,000 in campaign donations to buy women’s clothing and accessories, and used $1,306 to purchase gear at the RidgePointe Country Club pro shop.

Bookout resigned his seat after a Craighead County circuit judge appointed Jack McQuary of the state’s prosecutor coordinator’s office as special prosecutor in Bookout’s case.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 08/24/2013