What We Found Auditing Yuma’s 2026 Mayoral Campaign Finance Reports

What we reviewed

This review covers campaign-finance filings currently posted online for Douglas Nicholls’s Elect Douglas Nicholls committee (PC2017-06) and Carlos Adams’s Adams for Yuma Mayor committee (PC2026-03). We compared report cover summaries and schedules, independently recalculated reported cash balances and totals, extracted 101 populated transaction or obligation rows with source-page references, and compared Adams’s original and amended 2026 Q2 reports transaction by transaction. The original and amended reports are treated as separate filings.

We distinguish figures reported in the filings from Yuma Informed’s calculations and from questions the available records do not resolve. A difference or blank field alone does not establish an error, intent, motive, negligence, misconduct, or a legal violation. This article is not an official legal determination; any such determination must come through the process established by campaign-finance law. Yuma Informed has not contacted the City Clerk for additional records. Records not shown online are not treated as proof that a required filing was never made. If additional records are obtained, we will update the audit.

Douglas Nicholls

In the 2022 Post-General Q4 report, the cover reports $1,208.88 in disbursements, while Summary of Disbursements and Schedule B report $1,208.08. Using the cover’s opening cash of $4,908.38 and receipts of $6,500.00, the cover disbursement figure calculates to $10,199.50, which is $0.80 below the reported closing cash of $10,200.30. The Schedule B figure produces the reported closing balance. Both filed values remain as reported; the records reviewed do not explain why the cover differs.

The 2026 Q2 report’s six extracted Schedule B(1) detail amounts total $10,886.12, while the filed schedule total is $10,890.14. The remaining detail-to-total difference is $4.02. The source figures were checked against the filing; the available record does not identify which detail or adjustment accounts for the difference.

Two Q2 itemized receipt entries have blank dates: Tim Dunn’s $300 contribution and Gary Pasquinelli’s $198.50 in-kind contribution. Arizona law calls for itemized receipt records to include a date, including in the applicable individual-contribution and in-kind categories. The filings reviewed do not establish either date.

The July Post-Primary cover prints cash receipts as ---, and the cash receipt schedule fields are blank. The reported opening cash of $22,727.07, disbursements of $7,326.47, and closing cash of $15,400.60 are arithmetically consistent with zero net cash receipts. The filing does not explicitly state numeric zero. It separately reports $612.40 in-kind equity, which is not cash receipts. We preserve --- as filed.

Questions that remain open

The online record does not bridge the $10,200.30 closing cash reported at 2022 year-end to the $9,766.21 opening cash in the 2025 Annual report, a $434.09 difference. No intervening 2023–2024 report appears in the current City folder. Records not shown in the folder are not treated as proof that a required filing was never made.

Nicholls’s Q2 report lists a $1,000 Chris Miller contribution dated July 19, although the Q2 reporting period ends June 30. The July report covers July 1 through July 21 and contains no matching cash receipt detail. The records reviewed do not establish the actual receipt or check date, or explain the Q2 placement.

The Q2 Schedule B(1) lists Echo Canyon on July 13 with $7,476.54 in cumulative expenditures. The July report lists $5,000 on July 21 and $12,746.53 in cycle-to-date cumulative expenditures. Subtracting the July-period amount implies $7,746.53 before July activity, $269.99 above the Q2 entry. The public filings do not explain the recognition date or cumulative difference; purchase, authorization, payment, or adjustment records would be needed.

Carlos Adams

The original 2026 Q2 report shows $9,600.00 in receipts and $8,936.60 in disbursements, calculating to $663.40 in closing cash. The amended Q2 report shows $9,100.00 in receipts and $8,593.41 in disbursements, calculating to $506.59. Each version reconciles on its own reported figures.

The amendment omits a $500 receipt listed in the original and two original-report expenditures of $173.18 and $170.01, totaling $343.19. The $500 reduction in receipts and $343.19 reduction in disbursements explain the $156.81 decrease in closing cash, from $663.40 to $506.59. That amended closing balance matches the July report’s opening balance. The July report also reconciles: $506.59 opening cash plus $886.55 receipts minus $386.55 disbursements equals $1,006.59 closing cash.

The remaining Adams question is a difference in contributor details within the July report. It lists a $500 cash contribution as “Jose De La Crus” at 8 Greenside Drive and a $3,424 in-kind contribution as “Jose De La Cruz” at 6 Greenside Drive. The Q2 amendment removed the original Q2 $500 receipt, but it does not resolve these July entries. The records do not establish whether the July entries identify the same person or which name and address details are correct.

What additional records could establish

For Nicholls, filed 2023–2024 reports or balance records could clarify the cash bridge; receipt or check records could establish the Chris Miller date; and purchase, authorization, payment, or vendor records could explain the Echo Canyon entry. For Adams, contributor or committee records could clarify the July name and address entries. If additional records are obtained, the audit will be updated.