Michigan GOP pays $100K to Grand Hotel as Mackinac conference gets green light

LANSING — The Michigan Republican Party is taking in money but facing mounting expenditures as it pays salaries to Chair Kristina Karamo and six other employees and shells out significant deposits for its planned use of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island for a September conference, a report filed Monday shows.

The report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows the party took in $327,000 between April 1 and June 30 and spent just over $288,000 during that period. The party reported having just under $147,000 in cash on hand.

But many of the party receipts match specific dollar amounts listed on the party website for the Mackinac Island ferry, the conference registration, and rooms at the Grand Hotel for the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference in September. A person familiar with the conference planning, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said much of the money reported as receipts does not represent donations to the party. Instead, it represents payments from Mackinac conference attendees, the source said.

For example, state Sen. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake, confirmed Monday that the $300 receipt reported from him represents not a donation, but a conference registration fee Runestad paid for himself and his spouse.

The conference, held every other year, has attracted numerous Republican presidential hopefuls and other notable conservative politicos. Past speakers include former Vice President Mike Pence and Sens. Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Rand Paul, of Kentucky. It's a significant fundraiser for the state party.

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The state GOP, which has given up its former state party headquarters in Lansing amid downsizing and party strife, also told the FEC it was debt-free, after spending more than $2 million in party funds earlier this year; a significant chunk of that to retire debt.

Still, not all party accounts must be reported to the FEC so the full condition of party finances can't be determined from a single public report.

Payments during the most recent quarter included $34,750 to Karamo, who was elected party chair in February and as of June was receiving $2,500 a week, which would equate to an annual salary of $130,000. That's a change from the recent past because former party Chair Ron Weiser, a wealthy real estate magnate, served without a salary.

The report showed a total of just over $89,000 in salary payments to six other employees. The report also listed payroll and benefit expenses of more than $55,000, paid to Trion Solutions, a contractor that provides human resources services. But it's not clear that some of those on the payroll in April and May are still employed by the party.

The party's biggest expense in the quarter was two payments totaling close to $110,000, during April and May, to GHMI Resort Holdings, LLC of East Lansing, for "event venue rental and deposit." Those appeared to be payments for the planned use of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island for the party's biennial leadership conference, amid concerns over whether the party has the financial resources to pull it off.

The report also details over $14,000 in payments for "digital management" to For Liberty LLC, a consulting firm with ties to the far-right candidates who made major changes after taking control of the board of commissioners of Ottawa County, in western Michigan, in the 2022 election.

The party's receipts nearly all came in the form of small dollar amounts, with the largest single receipt being $3,900 and several receipts in the $2,000 range but the vast majority ranging from $5 to $100 each.

State political parties can accept unlimited donations and in the past it was not unusual for the state GOP to receive five-figure and six-figure donations.

The Free Press reported in February that major donors drifted away from the party over the last 10 years, to the point that at the time of Karamo's election, 58% of the money the party had raised since 2018 came from donors named either DeVos or Weiser. Currently, neither the DeVos family nor the Weiser family is giving to the party, the report shows.

Monday's report reflects salaries prior to the June removal of Matt Johnson as the party's budget chairman. Johnson has said he lost his post in June after calling for salary reductions to rein in spending he thought was out of control, The Detroit News reported.

So far, the party has announced two speakers for the conference. They are Kari Lake, a former GOP candidate for governor of Arizona, and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza. Both are known for promoting conspiracy theories about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan GOP pays $100K to Grand Hotel for Mackinac conference