The Buffalo News has seen Jon Powers’ Form 990. From the tidbits of information they reveal (which doesn’t really expand much beyond what has already been reported) I still see some curious things.

Congressional candidate Jon Powers released documents Wednesday showing that he earned $15,000 from his Iraq children’s charity in the first five months of 2007 — a year in which the organization raised only $41,738.

But the Powers campaign also released a letter from Veterans for America, the huge veterans organization where Powers worked, showing that the $60,000 he earned in 2006 was tied to his job as vice president for policy for that organization, as well as the War Kids Relief effort he ran there.

“Our opponents keep trying to frame it as if Jon was trying to rob War Kids blind, and it’s patently false,” said John Gerken, Powers’ campaign manager. “The claim that he took $77,000 from War Kids is patently false.”

Jack Davis’s campaign notes, however, that Powers paid himself a third of the revenues of War Kids Relief in 2007.

The War Kids effort, which Powers started as a Veterans for America project in 2005, was spun off as an independent charity in early 2007, a few months before Powers announced his race for the Democratic nomination to replace Reynolds.

The War Kids effort raised $68,336 while under the helm of Veterans for America, wrote Anita Keller, director of humanitarian affairs at Veterans for America, in her letter to Powers.

Approximately 80 percent of that, or about $54,669, went to programs to design a model for child care for children abandoned as a result of the Iraq War, as well as a work study program, a youth conference and research, the letter said.

That left approximately $13,667 for overhead. Gerken said overhead would have included office space and support costs for the War Kids effort, as well as the portion of Powers’ Veterans for America salary connected to it.

That would mean the bulk of the $60,000 Powers earned from Veterans for America was in connection with his job as vice president for policy. The Powers campaign said he took that title in May 2006 and testified at government hearings, worked on legislation and served as a spokesman for the charity. Officials at Veterans for America could not be reached to comment further on Powers’ duties there.

So, the War Kids effort raised $68,336 while under the helm of Veterans for America, and Powers was paid nearly 90% of that amount ($60,000) by the organization? That’s quite a lot of money for a poor performance.

Something tells me this issue is far from dead.

UPDATE:  War Kids… then and now…

Tags: Buffalo, Jack Davis, Jon Powers, War Kids Relief