A Puyallup City Council candidate who touts his background in finance still owes the state for unemployment benefits he collected after starting a new job five years ago.
According to records from the state Employment Security Department, District 3 candidate John Alexander was working for CitiFinancial, Inc. when he collected $7,936 in unemployment benefits between October 2004 and February 2005.
During that period, Alexander reported his income as $0 to the state, but his job actually paid him $12,528.54 during that time, state records indicate.
A tax warrant from the Employment Security Department ordered Alexander to repay $7,497.18 he still owed in February 2007.
To date, the warrant has not been vacated nor the debt resolved, according to the department’s records division.
The precise amount Alexander still owes is not public record, said Sheryl Hutchison, spokeswoman for the department.
Alexander told The News Tribune Wednesday he thought he was entitled to some continued unemployment benefits after he started his new job at Citigroup in Puyallup. It was only later that he learned he wasn’t eligible, he said.
“That job I got was paying me significantly less than the job I had before, so I wasn’t clear on what I was entitled to,” Alexander said. “If I thought I was not entitled to the benefits, I would not have cashed the checks.”
Hutchison said there’s no state program that continues to pay people unemployment benefits after they’ve found a full-time job.
“You can’t just go get any job you want and then ding us for benefits,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
Alexander said Wednesday he wasn’t sure precisely how much he still owes the state without checking his paperwork, but estimated it is about $3,000.
If that is the case, he would have been required to report it to the state Public Disclosure Commission in March when he began his City Council campaign.
Lori Anderson, spokeswoman for the state Public Disclosure Commission, said her agency requires candidates for public office to report any debts exceeding $2,000 that they owe the government.
The reporting requirement would include an Employment Security debt, she said.
If Alexander still owed more than $2,000 of the tax warrant within a year of when he began his campaign, he should have reported it.
Alexander said he wasn’t clear that his unemployment debt had to be listed along with his car loan and student loan under “creditors.”
“I didn’t view the ESD as a creditor,” Alexander said. “It’s not a conscious thing where I said, ‘I’m not going to talk about it.’ It didn’t cross my mind to put it in there.”
The personal financial disclosure form also requires candidates to list all sources of income in excess of $2,000; all outstanding loans and mortgages; and any businesses and properties they own.
“It gives voters a better idea of who these people are,” Anderson said. “It’s basically a conflict of interest form.”
Alexander now runs an economics consulting firm called Alexander Economics LLC. With CitiFinancial, he was a personal financial services representative, according to his campaign Web site.
“Budgets and financial analysis” are among the professional skills he uses to serve his community, he says in the “About Me” portion of his site.
Yet in addition to the employment security debt, Alexander owes other creditors thousands of dollars.
His Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition, originally filed in 2007, was dismissed last month after he failed to make payments.
His home near Wildwood Park was also auctioned off last month in a trustee’s sale. He said afterward that he still lives in the home as a tenant and is working to buy the property back.
Alexander said he doesn’t think his unemployment mistake or other financial challenges detract from his ability to serve as an effective city councilman.
He said he’s been struggling financially since January, when he lost his job as a government affairs liaison for the Master Builders Association of Pierce County.
“I was trying for a fresh start,” he said. “I’m the victim of a lot of economic factors right now.”
Alexander is running for the Puyallup seat being vacated by longtime Councilman Mike Deal. His opponent, Kent Boyle, hosts a morning radio show in Olympia.
Melissa Santos: 253-552-7058
melissa.santos@thenewstribune.com
