December 2000 — Tuniewicz Resigns as National Party Treasurer

At the December 2000 National Committee meeting, National Treasurer Mark Tuniewicz secured amendments to the Party’s Policy Manual, changing the specified duties of the National Treasurer. Tuniewicz had been unhappy with National Chair Bergland’s treatment of issues relating to Tuniewicz’s office. In particular, Bergland had forbidden Tuniewicz to communicate directly with the Party’s Auditors or with consultants on FEC Filings. Tuniewicz was instead required to pass his inquiries through the Party’s staff in Washington. A nominal explanation was that the Party was short of money, and that the National Treasurer might waste it asking questions of the auditors. This explanation seems quantitatively odd. The Party had a budget of several million dollars. Even at professional charging rates, a Treasurer could have consumed a significant number of hours of Auditor time while making a negligible impact on the budget.

At least some Libertarians were very disturbed by Bergland’s ruling as Party CEO. There was one other obvious reason why the National Treasurer would need to communicate directly with the auditors. If the National Treasurer suspected financial irregularities on the part of the Party staff or National Chair, Bergland’s ruling forced the Treasurer to reveal to the staff—who report to the National Chair—what he suspected whenever he posed a question to the auditors. This consequence of Bergland’s ruling as National Chair did not appear to some Libertarians to be a sound way to run any organization, no matter how honest the current National Committee and Staff might be. After the 2002 National Convention, investigation of National Headquarters accounting methods by newly-elected National Chair Geoff Neale and National Treasurer Deryl Martin revealed substantial deviations from standard practice, deficiencies that might well have been uncovered if Tuniewicz had been able to interact directly with the auditors.

As seen in the December LNC Minutes, the revised Policy Manual read in part:

“Section III Position Description of National Treasurer
A. Responsibility and Authority. The Treasurer is the Chief
Financial Officer of the LNC and shall have responsibility and
authority to perform all functions in conjunction with that role.

In part this includes:

1. To prepare and file Federal Election Commission reports and income tax returns as required by law, directly or _by written delegation_ to staff. … To supervise and review the preparation of all accounts of the party…”

Tuniewicz was soon to learn the value of his amendment. The National Party had long filed monthly Financial Disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission, permitting party members to learn how the Party was spending the members’ money. In January 2001, the Washington staff filed with the FEC to change the Party’s filing frequency from “monthly” to “quarterly”. Under FEC regulations, for 2001 a ‘quarterly’ filing schedule meant once for each half-year.

Tuniewicz had not directed anyone to make the change in filing frequency. Nor had he given a written delegation to staff to make the change. Indeed, he did not know that there had been a change until well after it occurred. The Minutes of the February 13 LNC meeting quotes Tuniewicz as saying ‘…he was not contacted regarding this decision until about one month after the FEC was told that the decision had been made.’ While Tuniewicz did express agreement with the decision, agreement with a fait accompli is a feeble sort of agreement. Furthermore, this change had certain major consequences not recognized at the time, namely that it greatly increased the potential filing burden on the LNC. As a quarterly filer, the LNC was required to file a report whenever it made expenditures in connection with a Federally-linked primary election, an event that potentially happens with significant regularity during each Federal Election cycle.