By Adam Pagnucco.

Yesterday was the deadline for candidates to file their Annual 2026 campaign finance reports.  It’s an important moment in this election season as candidates show their financial strength heading into the period when voters are paying attention.  For candidates in traditional financing, the next report is not due until April 21.  So normally, I would be crunching and reporting on all of these numbers, at least for candidates in Montgomery County.

But I’m not going to do that quite yet.

The reason is that the State Board of Elections (SBE) just rolled out a new reporting system for campaign finances and many candidates are struggling to use it.  I have been using this data for almost 20 years and I have never heard complaints of such volume and ferocity as those I have received this week.  (An aside: I’m a former campaign treasurer and you better believe I will never be one again after this!)  I can’t get into the specifics of these complaints because it would risk compromising my sources, something I will never do.  But I expect there to be MANY late reports and amended reports as campaigns try to report accurate information while minimizing fines – fines for which most of them bear no responsibility.

As an analyst, these failures impede my ability to analyze campaign finance data.  First, SBE has inexplicably removed all campaign finance information predating the 2019-22 cycle from its website.  Previously, the site included data from 2005 on.  I asked SBE to fix this issue last month.  They told me it would be fixed.  It has not been fixed.  Until it is, my ability to provide historical context is limited at best.

Second, I have noticed that on some reports, the summary sheets do not match the totals of downloaded data.  I don’t know why.  For now, I am going to rely on the spreadsheet downloads, but that is going to limit my processing speed.

Third, loans previously appeared in contribution downloads.  Now they don’t.  Instead, I have to locate them in individual filings and manually enter them.  There is no reason why this change needed to occur.

Fourth, aggregate totals for contributions appear to be inaccurate in some reports.  That’s a big deal for candidates in public financing, who are currently limited to $500 per individual in this cycle.  If their aggregates are inaccurately reported as higher than $500, they will appear to be in violation of the public financing law when they in fact did nothing wrong.

Finally, I expect a significant volume of amendments as candidates work through their issues with the reporting software.  That’s a problem because the data in any analysis that I do may shift without warning.  Analyses of data like this take a long time, and changes due to state reporting issues will undermine that work.  Let’s just stipulate that when I start posting analyses, the resulting data will be estimates at best.

As a result of the above issues and others, I’m reluctant to start crunching this data right now.  At minimum, I’m going to wait a few days while candidates resolve their issues with SBE.

New reporting systems always have glitches and this one has to cover hundreds of accounts and millions of records from all across Maryland.  SBE should have rolled out this new system at the start of a campaign cycle when the stakes are lower and glitches can be fixed quietly.  By rolling it out in the heat of election season, when lots of new candidates are filing and all of them are scrambling to show their strength, SBE has compounded its problems and hindered analysis of campaign finances.

All of this is tremendously unfair to the folks who are running for office as well as their treasurers.  For their sake as well as that of the public, these problems must be fixed as soon as possible.

The financial accounts of the general government sector cover transactions in financial assets and liabilities as well as the stock of financial assets and liabilities.

The net lending (+) / net borrowing (-) (also known as surplus/deficit), together with the gross debt of the general government, are among the most important indicators in government finance statistics. 

Generally, the movement in government debt can be linked with the government balance: in case a deficit is observed, one would expect to see an increase in debt, and in case of a surplus, some of it could be used to repay debt. However, this is not necessarily the case. Deficits can also be financed by the sale of financial assets, or alternatively, debt can be raised to finance the acquisition of financial assets. Therefore, the evolution of quarterly debt is also linked to the net acquisition of financial assets. The incurrence of liabilities not covered in the definition of the general government gross debt (mainly ‘other accounts, payable’), as well as the valuation differences and discrepancies, also play a role in explaining the change in debt.

Source datasets: gov_10q_ggnfa, gov_10q_ggfa, gov_10q_ggdebt

In the third quarter of 2025, the financing of the deficit (2.9% of quarterly GDP) explained the main part of the change in gross debt (4.5% of quarterly GDP) of the euro area. At the same time, the financing of the net acquisitions of financial assets (0.5% of GDP) and the repayment of liabilities not included in the general government gross debt (1.0% of GDP) also impacted the debt. Other differences between the change in debt and the deficit comprise notably certain revaluations of debt, adjustments between transactions and the change in stock at face value as well as discrepancies (0.1% of quarterly GDP). 

This information comes from data on quarterly government finance statistics published by Eurostat today. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on government finance statistics – quarterly data.

In 2020 and 2021, due to COVID-19 containment measures and policy responses to mitigate the impact of those measures, the change in debt was mainly influenced by large deficits, as well as acquisitions of financial assets. 

The Poole College of Management is launching a Financial Literacy Program for adults. The program is free and open to the public, regardless of your connection to NC State University.

Srini Krishnamurthy, program co-founder and associate professor of finance at Poole, says the goal of the program is “to equip participants with the knowledge and confidence to address financial decisions they face in everyday life, such as understanding interest rates and inflation, performing loan and mortgage calculations, budgeting, saving, investing through mutual funds, and planning for retirement.”

The curriculum is based on the most up-to-date financial research available, translated by professors into easy-to-understand practices and tools for use by anyone.

Real Research Impact

The idea for the Financial Literacy Program took root in 2022 during Krishnamurthy’s participation in an NC State faculty initiative called Strengthening the Impact of Research (STIR). “The program’s goal was to help faculty translate their research expertise into meaningful benefits for the broader community,” he says. “As part of the program, each participant was required to develop and present an idea with real-world impact.”

Around this time, college affordability was a hot topic. It was an issue that hit home for Krishnamurthy — several years earlier, when his daughter was applying to colleges, the two discussed what offers cost in practical terms.

“I built a spreadsheet that incorporated tuition, scholarships, and long-term implications, and walked her through the numbers. Equipped with this information, she confidently chose to attend NC State for computer science and graduated with very little college debt. That experience made clear to me how transformative basic financial knowledge can be, and how rarely it is accessible in a clear, practical form.”

Financial Literacy for All

Knowing that not every family had the knowledge or skillset to evaluate finance – after all, not every college-bound high school student is lucky enough to have parents with terminal degrees in finance – Krishnamurthy teamed up with another faculty member in the STIR program to address that.

They developed a successful financial literacy program for college students and delivered it through the Wake County Library systems and a Wake County Public School System high school. When the opportunity arose to start a similar program at Poole aimed at adults, Krishnamurthy said he was “eager to expand this effort.”

Classes are taught by current Poole professors, including Krishnamurthy, Umut Dur and Denis Pelletier. Topics include (but are not limited to) budgeting, investing basics, time value, loans, credit and retirement planning. Data from participants shows that comfort with major financial decisions increased by 45% by the end of the program, and objective understanding of investments and fees increased by 20%

The first set of classes are on Jan. 26th and 28th. Register using this Google Form.