CHAPEL HILL - This year the town instituted a new campaign-finance report to reveal candidates' spending up through six days before the election. Trouble is, only one candidate managed to file it on time. And she only received $1 in campaign contributions.

On her way to a second term on the Town Council, Laurin Easthom spent about $330 from cash left over from her 2005 campaign. Not exactly the big revelation the council had in mind when it mandated the new report, but Easthom's was the only new report available the Friday before the election.

Big spenders Matt Czajkowski, who narrowly lost the mayor's race, and Matt Pohlman, the first runner-up for the fourth available seat on the Town Council, did mail their "special pre-election reports" by the Oct. 29 deadline. But they didn't arrive at the N.C. State Board of Elections until Monday, Nov. 2, just a day before the election.

Czajkowski's report shows he took in more than $30,000 in campaign contributions and had spent $25,000 as of Oct. 28. Pohlman collected about $8,500 and spent nearly all of it by that time.

"This is what voter-owned elections are supposed to curb," said leading Town-Council vote-getter Penny Rich, who spent about $4,300 on her campaign. "$30,000 to become mayor? It's just an outrageous amount of money."

Czajkowski did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Incoming Town Councilman Gene Pease still hadn't filed his special pre-election report as of last Friday, more than two weeks past the deadline. The same goes for Jon DeHart, who finished seventh in the Town Council race. Mayoral candidate Augustus Cho and incumbent Councilman Jim Merritt did not have to file that report because they raised less than $3,000, said state campaign-finance official Amy Strange.

According to an amended "pre-election" campaign-finance report filed on Election Day, Pease had spent nearly $7,800 as of Oct. 19, more than any other Town Council candidate by that date including Pohlman. That report, once amended, also showed Pease had raised more than $10,000, enough to trigger an additional $2,000 in "rescue funds" for his publicly-funded opponent, Penny Rich.

Pease was supposed to file a special report within 24 hours of topping $6,000 in spending on Oct. 19, alerting the town that rescue funds might be necessary. Pohlman did file that report but never reached the $10,000 threshold. Pease never filed the 24-hour report, and Rich didn't realize until Election Day that she was eligible.

"There should have been some sort of notification to me that this happened," Rich said. "When you're campaigning, it's hard work, and the last thing I'm doing is going home at night is reading everybody's financial reports."

Pease did not respond to a phone call and e-mail seeking comment.

Rich took $3,000 available to her in the initial "voter-owned elections" [VOE] grant, minus about $130, the value of signs from her 2007 campaign. She ended up leading the field of candidates with support from more than 50 percent of voters. Rich said she ran out of money and couldn't pay her treasurer as planned.

"It would have been nice to have about $500 more," she said. "We just made do with what we had."

Rich said the VOE program is a pilot and there are kinks to work out.

"I'm still 100 percent behind this program," she said. "Even with these little quirky things that happened, it's still not that difficult a program."

Participants late

Rich and Mayor-elect Mark Kleinschmidt, the only two candidates to participate in the new "voter-owned election" program, each filed their special pre-election reports about a week late.

As of Oct. 28, Kleinschmidt had spent about $16,000 out of just over $18,000 available to his campaign. He had raised about $5,300 - close to his limit of $6,000 - and received $13,000 from the voter-owned elections program. Rich collected more than $1,400 in individual contributions and nearly $2,900 in public funds and spent almost all of it.

If either had any money left over by the time of the election, it must be returned to the town, regardless of where it came from. Final campaign-finance figures are due tomorrow.

Pease was the only candidate to receive a non-compliance notice from the Board of Elections during this campaign. He filed his "organizational report," the first campaign-finance report of each election season, about three weeks late. The board waived his $500 fine because it was a first offense.

"The reporting ... was a little bit screwy right at the start," said Rich.

Several other candidates filed either their 35-day reports or their pre-election reports a day late. Jim Merritt's pre-election report was a week late.

Challenger Will Raymond said he tried to file his special pre-election report online by the Oct. 29 deadline as Easthom did, but a glitch on the BOE's Web site cost him an extra day. He collected about $1,100, loaned himself $1,500 and spent about $2,500 on his third failed attempt to join the Town Council.

Lateness questioned

At least one critic of the town's public financing program is questioning why most candidates didn't file their special pre-election campaign finance reports on time.

"Certain Town Council members were so furious two years ago about money spent in between the 'pre-election report' and the election that they put in the 'special pre-election report' which obviously is supposed to be filed immediately prior to the election," wrote Czajkowski supporter Gregg Gerdau in an e-mail to the N.C. State Board of Elections. "Why was this not enforced? ... Why are you not requiring candidates spending taxpayer money on their own elections to be timely and transparent in their reporting of its expenditure?"

Board of Elections representatives did not return calls seeking comment.

In 2007, Czajkowski spent more than $15,000 between the first "pre-election" report 10 days out and the election itself, prompting the council to insert the "special" report due five days before the election.

"It's actually there so that people who aren't participating [in public financing] can show people what they are doing near the end," said Kleinschmidt, who qualified for $9,000 in public funding plus another $4,000 in rescue funds because Czajkowski topped $21,000 in contributions.

Kleinschmidt said the Board of Elections had not warned candidates immediately prior to the deadline as they had for other reports but said he still should have filed on time.

"That was a complete oversight on our part, and apparently everyone else's, and I regret that," he said.