Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) Admits Ties To Iffy Foundation And Posh Golf Junkets

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One of the big lessons of dealing with a political scandal is that you want your first story to be one you don't have to drop completely after two or three days. But that's what's happened to Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) and his piggybank non-profit, the Frontier Foundation. Frontier has raised over $800,000 for scholarships for deserving youth and managed not to award a single scholarship in its six years of existence.

Last week Buyer's spokesperson claimed, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that Frontier wasn't connected to him. But now he's admitting that for all intents and purposes he controls it. And a lot of the quarter million the outfit has spent so far seems to have gone to golf junkets with political contributors.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/...litics_pt_2.php

[Ban Hammer 14,665]

hang him by the nads!

[The_Dude 1,142]

I was gonna say "Vote him out!", but I think Charles put it better

[HAL 9000 96]

Plus his upswing looks a bit too tight.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

TPMuckraker? You can do better than that:

Buyer said all he's trying to do with his foundation is help Hoosier children, and that his detractors "are saying some very vicious and ugly things."

The first report filed by the Frontier Foundation shows it began with $25,000. Buyer said he doesn't know the source of the initial funds. Neither Mattix nor her replacement, Danford, returned calls.

Although the original intent was to hand out scholarships once the fund reached $100,000, Buyer said it quickly became apparent that to be self-sustaining and not require ongoing fundraising, the foundation would need to raise at least $1 million. Once that goal is met, he said, scholarships will be awarded.

"I don't want to stay in the fundraising business," Buyer said.

The fund raised $883,272 from 2003 through 2008 and had expenses of $268,636, leaving a balance of $614,636.

Of those expenses, 4 percent went to grants it handed out, such as $2,000 to a Monticello man whose home burned down in 2004, and 30 percent went to employee wages.

More than half of the expenses -- 51 percent -- went to fundraising, including more than $48,000 for travel.

Lesley Lenkowsky, professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University, said the foundation's decision to not award scholarships until building up a sizable fund is "certainly within good practice." And, he said, its expenses are not out of line.

"New organizations typically spend a large proportion of their revenues on fundraising and PR," Lenkowsky said. "He's actually about where some people think the benchmark should be."

http://www.indystar.com/article/20091018/N...giving+a+little