ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – Complaints have been filed to the Texas Ethics Commission for the Pastor of Fountain Gate Fellowship Church and City Council Place 4 candidate Scott Beard in regards to a video and donations made to his campaign from nearby churches.

“As most know in the last month especially we’ve had several things that have come at us,” Beard shared.

On Friday, the Texas Tribune published an article detailing Beard’s campaign and the acceptance of donations from three Abilene churches totaling $800.

According to the IRS website, congress approved an amendment in 1954 to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes churches from engaging in political campaigns. The IRS defines 501(c)(3) as one “which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

Scott Beard’s Campaign Finance Report shows money was received from these church’s:

  • Fountain Gate Church in Merkel: $200 March 28 (page 5 of report)
  • Remnant Church: $400 March 31 (page 8 of report)
  • Hope Chapel Foursquare Church: $200 April 2 (page 14 of report)

From Scott Beard’s Campaign Finance Report

BigCountryHomepage spoke with Beard and he shared he was not aware of the donations until working on the report.

“It got by us and folks can sit out there all day long and say it shouldn’t have and you’re probably right it shouldn’t have but it did,” Beard explained. “We caught it when we were doing the report. That’s when we saw the donation.”

Beard added that he and his campaign should have resolved this earlier.

“We should’ve caught it earlier. We just didn’t. The deposits were made. We didn’t see it. At that point, we saw it before we made our… actually when we made our report for our campaign report. At that point, we saw that and then we immediately reacted to fix the situation, which we did, and contacted the pastors and sent the money back to them,” Beard explained.

Look below to see the full financial report:

Beard, Scott – 2023 – 8 Day Before Election_RedactedDownload